Nanobots and Nanotechnology How many times have we seen stories about nanobots depicted in science fiction stories? In case you are not one of the types of people who like science fiction or maybe even science articles, I will tell you what nanobots are. They are tiny robots, which are so small you need a microscope to see them. There has been a lot of talk lately about developing nanobots which can be injected into human bodies which eventually should be able to detect cancer cells and destroy them without harming the good cells around them. There are problems with this idea and the problems stem from us not having technology which is advanced enough to accomplish this. Several things are necessary for this idea to be viable. The nanobots would have to be able to coordinate their moves with each other. They would have to be accepted by the body and not rejected. They would have to be able to discern the difference between cancer cells and others. They would need some way to power them so they could move around. They would have to be able to be controlled. One thing which is not mentioned very much is they should have the ability to be able to get out of the body on command if something goes wrong. I remember seeing a story once on a television series which was about the first human to get injected with nanobots. It was on television about 25 years ago, far before science was seriously thinking about injecting people with them. It worked fine for about a week then things began to happen. The nanobots decided to improve the human body and even this worked for a short period of time but eventually they killed their host. This was science fiction of course, but putting tiny machines into our blood stream could be a very dangerous thing. Recently scientists announced they were able to inject nanobots in a living host. The host which was mentioned was a mouse. The scientists were able to induce coordinated movement with the bots and this was a first in a host. Here is what the scientists had to say, “The fact of having been able to see how nanorobots move together, like a swarm, and of following them within a living organism, is important, since millions of them are needed to treat specific pathologies such as, for example, cancer tumors.” It is believed that getting the nanobots to interact with each other is a huge step and one which was a long time in coming. It certainly gives us another weapon to fight cancer when perfected. Nanobots are not only being developed for insertion into human bodies, but are already being used in some industries. A different definition of a nanobot has appeared which states a nanobot is a device, synthetic or biological, that is able to function on a near atomic level and perform preprogrammed tasks. Notice the use of the word biological. One of the things I found interesting about the development of nanobots is the fact scientists and engineers are talking about using specialized nanobots known as assemblers to create more sophisticated nanobots. They would do this by stacking layers of atoms on each other until the desired device is built. I never cared for the idea of robots building robots, especially when the robots design what they are going to build. Shades of the Terminator. When we talk about nanobots, as I mentioned above, one of the problems is their power supply. It is said to be one of the biggest problems, especially if you want these things to stay in a body and continue their cancer cell search. If we look at things today this seems to be impossible. The ways to power the nanobots being suggested seem unappetizing. They are either coating the nanobots with radioactive material which they can draw energy from or giving them the ability to ingest tissue from the body they are in and use that for energy. One idea might be to make the nanobots biodegradable and let them dissolve after a short time which was long enough to allow them to do their job and if more were needed at a later date you could inject the patient again. How will people feel about allowing tiny robots to roam throughout their bodies independently? We know people tend to be more or less skeptical about letting this happen and who can blame them? Just the thought of allowing millions of tiny robots into one’s body is a scary thought, no matter how safe they are claimed to be. One way the nanobots might work is by the bots being drawn to the cancer and stopping on top of it. Once this happens a light which is tuned to the near infrared spectrum is used to heat the nanobots to 131 degrees Fahrenheit and this destroys the cancer cells without harming the cells around it. It is being said the bot could also be programmed to detect toxins. Some of the industrial uses for nanobots is in clothing. We have all been hearing about smart clothing which will eliminate the need to carry electronics because it will be built into our clothes. Nanobots will be able to make this a practical thing. Nanobots have many uses outside the medical field. I would think, at least in the beginning, price will play a big part in putting or using nanobots for manufacturing. It is said they could make parts a lot lighter without weakening them. This exact thing was stated about car bumpers built using nanobots. If we can use nanobots to detect and kill cancer cells, we can use them to purify our food when it is manufactured. The bots would search through the food before it was packaged and kill bacteria cells and maybe other material which doesn’t belong in our food. This would be a great use of the technology and might be able to eliminate all those food recalls. The technique of using nanotechnology, not using nanobots, but particles which are reduced to the same size as the bots or even smaller was somehow discovered in ancient Rome which produced a cup which changed color when the light hit it due to the nanoparticles of gold and silver in it. This same technology has uses for us today in different products such as stabilizing sun screen, along with many other uses. We don’t know how the ancient Romans were able to do this with their limited technology, but if they could do it, there is no reason why we can’t.
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