Nanotechnology: sci-fi fears vs. a world of innovation

[Are_grits_groceries]

Nanotechnology has surprising applications in mundane materials like sunscreen and esoteric items like high-tech body armor for soldiers. But some fear scarier scenarios worthy of a science fiction novel.
<snip>
At Florida State University, engineers are creating new body armor for American troops. It's more durable, more bulletproof and light enough that it can cover arms and legs as well as torsos.

And they're developing a super-strong, extra-light ``unmanned aerial vehicle'' that could be carried into battle, unfolded and launched over the horizon to spy on the enemy.

``A soldier could carry it in his backpack,'' Allen says.


Florida State University's Dr. Ben Wang shows a model of an 'unmanned aerial vehicle.'

The two devices will be made from ``buckypaper'' made from thin sheets of carbon nanotubes -- carbon that has been vaporized and reformed into particles only a few atoms in size, becoming many times lighter and stronger than steel.

They're using nanotechnology -- the creation and manipulation of materials down to the atomic level.
<snip>
If nanotechnology someday can restore sight to the blind through devices implanted in the brain, he says, it just as easily can create mind-controlled weapons.

He argues that even federal laws might not be enough to control such power unless scientists and the public are fully on-board with the need for restraint.
<snip>
More recently, as nanotechnology has come into wider use, more mundane dangers have surfaced. Now scientists worry that that tiny, fiberlike nanomaterials used to fight disease inside the body might cause the same kinds of lung inflammations, even cancers, as the fibers in asbestos.

Jane's, the London-based research group that publishes the industry standard Jane's All the World's Aircraft, warns that nanotechnology can be used to create entirely new hazards such as miniaturized nuclear weapons that are smaller, lighter, easier to transport and hide and smuggle into unsuspecting countries. It says nano techniques designed to deliver medicines in a more-targeted way also can deliver toxic substances in a form of bioterrorism.
http://www.miamiherald.com/living/health/story/1273684.html

Brave new world.....Ready or not....Here it comes!

[MilesColtrane]

1. Not to mention the Replicators, when they are eventually invented...

The Foresight Institute was founded in 1986 over just such concerns.


http://www.foresight.org/

[pokercat999]

2. Every technology ever discovered has a potential military

use, that will never change until we arrive at the point when the military is no longer needed.It could be that these technologies if shared throughout the world for good will lead us to that time.

[Are_grits_groceries]

5. I'm not opposed to nanotechnology.

There a lot of beneficial uses. There are always caveats about a lot of new ideas.

[Swede]

3. I watched a story on nanotech use in clothing.

Nano bamboo and silver is incorporated into clothing for odor dispersion. Anyway the particles enter the bloodstream and go directly to the brain and gather there,the bodies filters cannot filter them because they are so small. No one knows what this will do.

[Democracyinkind]

4. So how does the nanoscreen work for your health?

People who have concerns about the lax legislation concerning nanotechnology are no neo-luddites.
The fact that there are weaponizations on a nanomolecular basis is not the greatest threat to health that nanotechnology presents.

[Odin2005]

6. Nano-manufacturing will make traditional mass production obsolete.

Just put (recycled) raw materials into the family "3d printer" and a laptop comes out. Or a microwave, or a radio. Larger community ones would make cars and large appliances.

[Zix]

10. That's *some way off yet*, I think... :D

Unless you're excluding your actual full on high-octane-nightmare-fuel Von Neumann nanotech, and even then it'd be some way off. That's what I think, anyway.

[applegrove]

7. Yup. At least they didn't wait till somebody's lungs got damaged before they sounded the alarm.

[BlooInBloo]

8. Oh goody. The next science topic for people who know nothing about science...

To quake in fear over.

[Are_grits_groceries]

9. I'm not quaking in fear.

I think new technology can be a boon. However, I also don't think every new idea should be hastily embraced without some thought into the possibilities it has, both positive and negative.

If people don't know about an idea, they can find understandable summations of a lot of it. The mathematics and other parts may be beyond them, but a lot of it is put into practical terms.

Are you just the "Negativity Fairy"? Do you get your jollies hopping from thread to thread posting unproductive and insulting comments?

[MadHound]

11. Like virtually any scientific breakthrough, nano tech is a double edged sword

It all depends upon the uses it is put to. Sadly, it will be put to use for both good and evil purposes. Bulletproof vests and mosquito sized surveillance vehicles. That sort of thing. The only question remains is whether the good will outweigh the evil. We'll see.