[TheBigDog]

Nano technology is one of those ideas that has yet to cross over from the laboratory and theory into a working and applied science. When discussions of nano technology take place they typically involve fantastic predictions of applications in medecine. And an assumption is made that the technical hurdles will simply be worked out somehow. What I would like is a discussion of the engineering challenges involved in taking nano technology from theory into practice.

I don't think that small means simple.

Bill

[C1ay]

Here's a story to get you started since you asked

[GAHD]

Yeah...Self Assembling Nano Technology *is* allready in use.

...or were you talking more about the micro-macheines variaty?

[TheBigDog]

I am interested in discussing nano technology in general. The article C1ay posted talks about what I would say is "passive" nano technology. It is little bits that are treated with special coatings so they stick to targeted little bad things and then get removed from the system when they pass in the bloodstream past a magnet. Very cool. And seemingly very simple. It sounds to me like how many nano technologies will manifest themselves for the time being.

So, what other applications are there for such passive nano technologies? And at what point do we cross to the world of intelligent little micro machines?

Bill

[Michaelangelica]

Here is a stunning bit of technology/engineering for you

Robyn Williams: This is The Science Show where small is very big, like the nano work of Professor Yanik at MIT. He's Turkish, by the way, putting a nano worm in a chip to operate.

I'm rather surprised by the fact that you, an electrical engineer, are working on the nervous system of an animal, so you're doing biological work. How did that come to be?

Mehmet Fatih Yanik: That was a long-standing interest I had in biology. I didn't want to do biology the usual way it is done because I thought there are enough people doing it, and I tried to bring new technologies to solve some of the challenging questions.

Robyn Williams: These new technologies are really astonishing. I've just been to your lab and I've seen the way that you have a kind of chip into which you put the nematode worm, these tiny, tiny microscopic worms, which is difficult enough in the first place, but then you can use various techniques to have a kind of glowing nervous system, you can actually see the nervous system illuminated in a kind of bright green, you can see the wiring. And then you can use tiny pulses of laser light in incredibly short bursts to cut the nervous system and then watch it regenerate. That's an amazing process, getting it really down to the nano scale. Was it very difficult to develop this technology?

Mehmet Fatih Yanik: To be able to manipulate the animals we developed microchip technologies. These are used for the fabrication of the chips that we use in our computers but they are modified versions of them, and to be able to cut individual nerve processes at such a high precision we basically applied femtosecond laser pulses.
Robyn Williams: Femtosecond is unbelievably fast, isn't it. It's a zillion billionth of a second.

Mehmet Fatih Yanik: It's true, it's about 10-15 second.

Robyn Williams: And you can actually cut a chromosome, you're actually operating, doing surgery at the molecular level.

Mehmet Fatih Yanik: With this technology we can cut individual nano scale connections that connect individual neurons to each of them. For example, we can nick out synaptic junctions, we can nick out axonal connections. These are connections that neurons use to communicate with each other, and we can study various questions. We can, for example, ask the question how they regenerate after such a physical injury, or we can ask the question how the nervous system works by basically taking out pieces of a lego then you can start decrypting how it works.

Science Show - 5April2008 - Regeneration of nerves
This amazed me "we can nick out synaptic junctions, we can nick out axonal connections"
I also liked "it's about 10-15 second"
Lego has lot to be responsible for.
I may forgive it for crummy architecture if it can inspire this.