Category Archives: Nanotechnology

iBuilt-One-Too-Many-Robots

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by ra41. CC: Flickr

Recently the Navy issued a proposal that DangerRoom summarized perfectly, they want to create ”the Easy-Bake Oven of the robot apocalypse.”

The proposal can be broken into three “phases”:

1. “ Develop proof-of-concept for manufacturing with distributed micro-robot swarm.” As well as “Develop the architecture for a networked real-time embedded system, i.e., cyber-enabled manufacturing, to design, plan and operate this micro-factory for desktop manufacturing.”

2. “Build a micro-robot swarm system that is capable parallel processing in the production the selected complex material system”

3. “Transition the micro-robot swarm desktop manufacturing technology to critical military use and the civilian sector. Build marketable manufacturing units and demonstrate the fabrication of test-beds.”

The proposal also notes that “A successful swarm micro-robot desktop manufacturing system would be useful for a variety of commercial applications. Such a manufacturing platform can be used to create super-strong components, ultra-lightweight materials, composite and hierarchical structures, complex part geometries, and/or multi-functional components.”

One possible reading of this proposal goes like this:

1. Prove we can make a micro-robot army, as well as bigger robots to make the smaller robots for us

2.Build them

3. Let the military have ‘em.

Oh and lets try to flip ‘em to make a profit too.

So it’s finally going to happen, robots building other robots–micro-other-robots! … better call Bridget Moynahan, Will’s gunna need a hand… that’s not robotic.

 

Zinc sunscreens increase disease risk, scientists report

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South Boston sunbathers. Photo: Scott LaPierre

The whole point of investigating nanomaterials is that we know that metals behave differently on the nanoscale (<100 nanometers).
Still, the makers of sunscreens did think it was necessary to wait for research such as this (excerpt and link, below), which finds that nano-zinc is highly toxic, before stuffing it into their products.
Robust markers of apoptosis, Annexin V staining, loss of mitochondrial potential, and increased generation of superoxide were observed when cells were treated with ZnO particulate matter but not when treated with comparable concentration of a soluble Zn salt. Both ZnO samples induced similar mechanisms of toxicity, but there was a statistically significant increase in potency per unit mass with the smaller particles.

via ZnO Particulate Matter Requires Cell Contact for Toxicity in Human Colon Cancer Cells – Chemical Research in Toxicology ACS Publications.

Georgia Tech nanomagnets snag cancer cells

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Incredible. Another nano-therapy that might be available in the short term:

Scientists at Georgia Tech and the Ovarian Cancer Institute have further developed a potential new treatment againsat cancer that uses magnetic nanoparticles to attach to cancer cells, removing them from the body. The treatment, tested in mice in 2008, has now been tested using samples from human cancer patients. The results appear online in the journal Nanomedicine.

via Magnetic Nanoparticles Show Promise for Combating Human Cancer.

You might also recall this mind-blowing interview on NPR, in which Georgetown researcher Esther Chang reports a method for using nanoparticles to deliver tumor suppressor genes to kill tumors.

Argonne's chip fights nano-forces of evil

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One of the challenges vexing nanotechnologists is that materials behave differently on the nan0scale, than on the micro- and macro- levels. Now, Argonne National Laboratory scientists have developed a chip to detect the Casimir Force, which throws nanoparticles out of alignment.

“Oh father of the four winds, fill my sails…”

MEMS used to detect the presence of the Casimir Force on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Scientists advance safety of nanotechnology

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Photo: CC/US Army

Photo: CC/US Army

Nanoparticles being used in medicine are deadly if inhaled. But they’ve got a drug for that, already:

In a study published online today Thursday 11 June in the newly launched Journal of Molecular Cell Biology [1] Chinese researchers discovered that a class of nanoparticles being widely developed in medicine – ployamidoamine dendrimers PAMAMs – cause lung damage by triggering a type of programmed cell death known as autophagic cell death. They also showed that using an autophagy inhibitor prevented the cell death and counteracted nanoparticle-induced lung damage in mice.

via Scientists advance safety of nanotechnology.

Singularity watch: New technologies as likely to to enslave as liberate

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We might not want to live forever (emphases, below, are mine). Libertarian author David Friedman appears to be arguing in a new book (which I will be reviewing in the coming weeks) that the future will be an adapt-or-die type thing:

David Friedman, author of such books as The Machinery of Freedom and Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, now looks at a variety of technological revolutions that might happen over the next few decades, their implications, and how to deal with them. Topics range from encryption and surveillance through biotechnology and nanotechnology to life extension, mind drugs, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. One theme of the book is that the future is radically uncertain. Technological changes already begun could lead to more or less privacy than we have ever known, freedom or slavery, effective immortality or the elimination of our species, and radical changes in life, marriage, law, medicine, work, and play. “If it can be done, it will be done,” David Friedman has said. “So the interesting thing to me is not what should you stop but how do you adapt.” We do not know which future will arrive, but it is unlikely to be much like the past. It is worth starting to think about it now.

via Cato Institute: Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World (Book Forum)

Robot "skin jobs" in the works

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<a href=Japanese scientists say they’ve developed a fully-flexible, and stretchable, conductive skin for robots with carbon nantubes.

U.S. scientists this week also announced they have made a flexible material that might make an excellent covering for artificial eyeballs.

Material bends, stretches and conducts electricity? | Technology | Reuters
They stretched the sheet of material to nearly double its original size and it snapped back into place, without disrupting the transistors or ruining the material’s conductive properties.

The elastic conductor would allow electronic circuits to be mounted in places that would have been impossible up to now, including “arbitrary curved surfaces and movable parts, such as the joints of a robot’s arm,” Sekitani and colleagues wrote.

Spy watch for insta-DNA testing?

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Parallelnormal is back on-line after a recent “health scare.” Please keep your comments and feedback coming! — mb

Scientists in authoritarian-ruled Singapore say they’ve developed a DNA identification assay-on-a-chip that also preps a drop of blood for sampling. This means any one of us might be just a pinprick away from being instantly Identified as a threat. (The watch, below, is one possible form-factor for the DNA tester.)

Wiley

From the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology:

…a rapid test for genetic diagnosis that combines the preparation of biological samples with a polymerase chain reaction PCR on one chip. As they report in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the “laboratory device” for all steps in this system is a single drop containing magnetic nanoparticles, which is moved across the chip by a magnetic field.

What happens when nanomaterials get under our skin?

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You can’t see them, but they can hurt you.

The U.S. federal government will spend $12 million to study what nanomaterials do inside the body, and in nature.

The EPA this week announced it will help fund research into how “extent nanomaterials bioaccumulate (and) whether they pose unique risks to human health and the environment through biomagnification along the food chain, and what exposures might occur.”

clipped from es.epa.gov
There is currently insufficient information about the human health and environmental impacts of engineered nanomaterials, e.g., nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanowires, fullerene derivatives, and other nanoscale materials.
Potentially harmful effects might arise as a result of the properties of the nanomaterials themselves or the products made from them, as well as through the manufacturing process involved. The increased surface area, morphology, small size, and enhanced reactivity of some nanomaterials will affect transport properties within the environment and may lead to harmful interactions with cellular material.