Building the Future of Our Planet at the Nano Level
Building the Future of Our Planet at the Nano Level
probably more than anything else since we left the caves.” –James Burke
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is when engineering, science, and technology take place at the nanoscale which is between 1-100 nanometers generally speaking.
Scale
One nanometer is 1/1,000,000,000 of a meter. This is ridiculously tiny.
There are 25.4 million nanometers in an inch. I don't know if you can subdivide that in your brain to visualize it, but I definitely can't.
To visualize what might make up this Nano size, let's take a look at some images that show sizes of things in comparison. A human hair roughly is measured at 100,000 nanometers in diameter. So when you look at something like a Nanoparticle which is only 4 nanometers in diameter, you can imagine how those can configure.
Early Nanotech Days
In medieval churches, nanotechnology was actually used. Not that they knew it. Often there were these gold and silver, or even color stains on the windows to make stained glass. This changed the composition on a nano level which led to beautiful art and insanely futuristic science that nobody knew they were doing.
Future Vision of Nanofabrication
James Burke is a British Science Historian. He is known for his Science TV Series Connections (1978) and The Day The Universe Changed (1985). He has made some very recent predictions that push science as we know it today.
He believes that by mid-century of this 21st century, we will find a world defined by a new device called a Nanofabricator. What if there was a device that can take earth materials and make basically anything out of it. Taking the raw materials of the earth that you can fine nearly everywhere you could make food, a new phone, etc. If you have the instructions, recipe, blueprint, whatever you may call it, and the raw materials needed to make it then you could make nearly anything.
Above is an example of a 285 micrometer racecar printed with a Nanofabricator at Vienna University of Technology. The technology they used was Two-Photon Lithography.
This potentially will increase human lives significantly. Especially if the Modern Advancements in Nanotechnology following this section would be possible to use the instructions from to make at home and give yourself.
Some think Erix Drexler is the father of Nano-Fabrication because he was writing in the 1990's about assembling devices that could do it on the molecular level. Remember, this scale is particles at the 1/1,000,000,000 of a meter.
Richard Feynman
In 1959, the physicist Richard Feynman gave a talk "Plenty of Room at the Bottom" where he imagined the world at an atomic level where we could move individual atoms and create larger structures. So far people consider that a complete violation of the law of physics. But it seems like it's coming sooner than we think. This is pretty abstract, but Feynman has a great way of explaining complicated things in relatable ways. I encourage everyone to check out more in the link below.
Modern Advancements in Nanotechnology
There are several major advancements in practical nanotechnology. I have gathered a list of 10 that I want to present. These are incredible advancements and lead me to believe that Burke may be right. This is an exceptional idea and might be able to put into action for consumers in the near (next 25 years) future.
1: iOptik platform - Contact Lenses and Virtual Reality
I read a little about this and it seems promising. At least for a first of it's kind. With a massive 6 times the pixels we see in our devices and 46 times the screen size of mobile screens right now.
This is considered a medical device. Google is also currently developing a medical device... could Google Glass 2.0 be contact lenses?
2: Nanosensor which can detect heart attacks. Axel Scherer, PhD and Eric Topol, PhD, have been working on nanochips that fit in our bloodstream which can detect heart attacks before they happen. For example, you might get a text on your iPhone to go to your Cardiologist immediately, heart attack eminent. 90 Microns is how large the chip measures at this time.
For a comparison, beach sand measures 100-10,000 microns.
(To see more comparisons of sizes of particles or objects, check this out)
3: Antibiotic Suraces inspired by Nature - The Australian Dragonfly with the name "wandering percher" has tiny spikes that make bacteria struggle to grow. It's like a black silicon. These Australian and Spanish scientists found that a black silicon material helps fight bacteria and endospores (help bacteria survive during environmental stress).
4: Ultra-Miniature Batteries - At Harvard University and University of Illinois, researchers have found a way to make batteries that are about 1 mm across by 3D printing. The scale of what these people are doing is tiny, but in a worldly sense it’s huge. There are so many more advancements that they are doing including creating miniaturized medical devices for drug delivery, and mini bio-sensors.
5: The OctoMac and Eye Surgery - Made at ETH Zürich, these little robots at 285 nanometers diameter are able to dissolve blood clots in the vessels of the eye. Yes, that’s ridiculous. They use OctoMac, which is an external magnetic field and that alone powers all of these little bots. They don’t have their own individual motors and propulsion as that’s been what’s slowed this technology’s growth.
In Pasadena, there’s Replenish Inc. They created a device about the size of 2 quarters that is an implantable micro pump for slow releasing drugs over time.
6: Flexible Computer Chips - At ETH Zürich again, these miniature chips were created that are so insanely flexible they can wrap around a strand of hair. The sheet of chips is one micrometer thick, and they found that when it’s wrapped around something like hair, it still functions. This has already been used in a glaucoma monitor and in an artificial eye. This definitely unlocks potential for wearables in the future, since that is what everyone is talking about.
7: Biodegradable Electrodes - As weird as this is, Carnegie Mellon University’s professors Chris Betting and Jay Whitacre found that ink from the cuttlefish could be use dot power miniature ingested electronic devices. This means that medical devices for swallowing could be more easily powered and more reliable. This also uses materials we find in our daily diet.
8: Cancer Killing Nanoparticles - Cornell University found that if you take tiny gold allow particles and put them in the bloodstream, you can easily use infrared heat on the gold to kill the cancer cells. Gold (No. 79 on the Periodic Table of The Elements) absorbs this infrared heat easily. They attach these gold nanoparticles to “colorectal-cancer-cell-seeking antibodies” in their words.
Similar to this, MIT created miniature nanoparticles that carry doxorubicin (cancer drug) and short RNA strands to the cancer. Short RNA strands can shut off on elf the genes that cancer typically uses to evade doxorubicin.
9: Silver Germ-Killer - Silverware is the only thing I really know that silver is used in. But really, it has been used in many things. The tiny particles of silver are able to destroy bacteria (this has been known for a while). There still needs to be more research on whether silver might have any potential health risks with it.
10: Breathalyzer for Diabetics - Yes, a nanotech breathalyzer. It can eventually get rid of finger-pricking to test for blood sugar. It detects acetone in breath which so far has tested to show relation to blood glucose levels. They have initially created one at Western New England University that was roughly the size o a book. At Technische Universität Desden (in Germany) they created one that is small enough to fit in a standard mobile phone.
11: Just for fun, A Stomach Acid Kickstarted Pill - Proteus Digital Health created a pill that has a sensor, transmitter, and power supply. When you take the pill, the stomach acid causes the battery to be started and sends a signal that says you have actually taken it.
Structure Changes
The structure of basically every system in the world most likely would change if this nanofabricator that Burke imagines were the case. I mean by then crypto-currencies might just replace all currency too. Would be cool, huh Steemians? But I mean structure changes meaning that nothing would really be the same. You wouldn't need to buy your new TV, you could go online and buy the instructions for it, maybe even raw material bricks to build it, and the nanofabricator would do the rest. In a sense you could get a better product because all of the processes would be refined, there wouldn't be human error, or gluing issues, faulty cables, or anything like that.
I can't see this being a problem for people wanting to make things by hand either. If they wanted to do stuff by hand, it would leave more opportunity for that.
Changing Musical Instrument Luthier Capabilities
Want to print a $1,000,000 Stradivarius Violin for your son to be learning on? Great just throw a brick of dirt and some metal in and we'll make it identical to the original.
Want a perfectly made saxophone? Great... just print one. What I think is even cooler than this, is that you could use body scanning software to have it print an ideal instrument for you based on your body, lung size, finger size, etc. This is the future in luthier technology in my opinion.
It's something the Nura Headphones do for your ears, instead of molding their plastic to your ear canal, they morph the sound waves to best reflect in them. If Ultimate Ears and Nura paired together to make molded earbuds with the audio technology combined, they might be on to some pro-level products as well.
The response I've read has been tremendous but I've yet to try them myself. Might do a post about these alone.
A Brief Look at Your Future Using the Nanofabricator
You could print drugs that might save your life... you might need a Zicam last minute, or you might need the drug of the future that's perfectly designed down to the billionth of an inch to work the best in your body.
Maybe you want a solar panel to charge your phone.
Either way, Ho, Ho, Ho! Santa Clause is actually real and he's coming into your homes in the next few decades in the form of a nanofabricator.
Politics, Lobbying, and Everything Else
It's definitely possible that there would be a lot of inside jobs, politics, and people trying to stop these machines from being built. After all, they would change the entire system from social, political and economic. As Burke puts it, every system and institution is governed by scarcity in some way. What will this mean for profits? For the medical industry as we know it? For a new life where material possessions aren't harder to come by and we can focus on more things that are important, like life itself.
Yes, the medical industry can charge us for instructions to make the medicines, but it probably wouldn't compare to them actually making it. In fact, I think it would allow companies to make better quality products and focus their time more on making the product than having the manufacturing be part of the process. It will also mean a higher quality of medicine for the end user since the expiration date won't matter if they print it when they need it.
And, another image to iginite your curiosity:
Steemians, what do you think about this forseen Futuristic Technology changing our planet?
Interesting article
thanks @dumb.artist
wow, another mind blowing post ... happy new year, great work
@clumsysilverdad, Thank you again for sticking by me to check out some posts. I also forgot to mention less waste involved... :D
#challenge30days @dragonsroua
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