The elixir of Life?

[Foopzheart]

Immortal Ducky = Long-lasting Kind Old Woman (later on) that gives cookies to all. ^-^

[16hockjo]

nanobots are the key to immortality. They will fix defects in the human body and reverse the aging process. It is only a matter of time. No need for pills, leave the work to the teeny weeny tiny bots!

Why I hate nano-bots "This is my favorite scenario, because its utterly terrifying. As technology progresses it gets smaller and smaller. Pretty soon we are going to enter the realms of Nano technology. In a simple way we are already there. IBM for instance placed single atoms to spell out the IBM logo. For this scenario we have to go a little bit into the future, not long, say 10 years. Nanobots are what I’m talking about. They will be microscopic robots designed to do all sorts of tasks, mostly in the medical field where they can seek out and eradicate bacterial infections, repair tissue damage, mend blood vessels. Lots of things that would be very helpful to everyone. They will be able to rearrange single atoms and for instance, make water out of sand. They will be able to take carbon atoms and turn them in diamonds. They will pick up raw materials and rearrange them into what they need. Well, obviously they will be extremely difficult to make, being microscopic and everything. And herein lies the problem. Scientists realize the only way to make them would be to use the Nanobots themselves. To make them self replicating. So each one is a microscopic Nanobot factory.

Here’s the scary bit. What would happen if just one of them were accidentally thrown away? Well it would pretty much go around changing atoms into robots. Then those robots would make more, and more, and more, at an exponential rate until the horror has unfolded. Scientists believe within 72 hours every single atom on earth will be turned into a Nanobot. All buildings, cars, plants, rocks, the water, animals and yes, even us humans… are now Nanobots. There it is, an endless sea of grey goo. And if ever some extra terrestrial were to land on the planet, then they too would be turned into Nanobots. What’s even more scary is that scientist are really working on creating Nanobots and are very close to achieving it."

[mmm]

nanobots are the key to immortality. They will fix defects in the human body and reverse the aging process. It is only a matter of time. No need for pills, leave the work to the teeny weeny tiny bots!

Why I hate nano-bots "This is my favorite scenario, because its utterly terrifying. As technology progresses it gets smaller and smaller. Pretty soon we are going to enter the realms of Nano technology. In a simple way we are already there. IBM for instance placed single atoms to spell out the IBM logo. For this scenario we have to go a little bit into the future, not long, say 10 years. Nanobots are what I’m talking about. They will be microscopic robots designed to do all sorts of tasks, mostly in the medical field where they can seek out and eradicate bacterial infections, repair tissue damage, mend blood vessels. Lots of things that would be very helpful to everyone. They will be able to rearrange single atoms and for instance, make water out of sand. They will be able to take carbon atoms and turn them in diamonds. They will pick up raw materials and rearrange them into what they need. Well, obviously they will be extremely difficult to make, being microscopic and everything. And herein lies the problem. Scientists realize the only way to make them would be to use the Nanobots themselves. To make them self replicating. So each one is a microscopic Nanobot factory.

Here’s the scary bit. What would happen if just one of them were accidentally thrown away? Well it would pretty much go around changing atoms into robots. Then those robots would make more, and more, and more, at an exponential rate until the horror has unfolded. Scientists believe within 72 hours every single atom on earth will be turned into a Nanobot. All buildings, cars, plants, rocks, the water, animals and yes, even us humans… are now Nanobots. There it is, an endless sea of grey goo. And if ever some extra terrestrial were to land on the planet, then they too would be turned into Nanobots. What’s even more scary is that scientist are really working on creating Nanobots and are very close to achieving it."

Has someone been reading Michael Crichton's Prey? Great book.
Nanotechnology of that magnitude is, at the moment, science fiction. We cannot maintain complicated machines this small without a power source, and our power sources are not small enough, for the time being. If we solve this problem (Quantum computers anyone?), a myriad of possible uses are revealed. A smart-pill can release it's medication specifically proximal to cancer cells, bypassing crude chemotherapy altogether. Materials can be bonded by microbots at the molecular level, creating super strong materials with unique properties. The catch is, manufacturing machinery on the molecular level requires molecular-sized factories. This would be inconvenient for one, and possibly catastrophic if the manufacturers didn't take proper precautions. Chinese manufacturers design their factories to leach all available moisture out of the air rather than providing the factories with an isolated water source as a way to cut costs. What happens when factories are released into the atmosphere due to cheap air filters? They start draining the local pond. The factories create more factories, which drain more water from the pond. Pretty soon, the pond is gone and you have millions of nanoparticles draining every bit of water it comes upon.
With great power comes great responsibility, and all that jazz.