|
Nanotechnology - small wonder it's coming (ZDNet, 6/25/08) |
|
|
|
|
June 25, 2008 |
|
…Nanotech is coming – and it's going away. It's coming
because it solves real problems and makes good use of all the expensive lessons
we've learned refining semiconductor physics and production, and it's going
away as a concept because it's going to be part of everything. There is nowhere
else for chips to go: the introduction of the 80386 is further behind us than
we are away from all the roadblocks at the end of classical semiconductor
development. And nanotech is going to become a huge part of the future of
chemistry, biology and physics: nothing else gives us the power to work at the
scale that really matters to us – every system that makes us up can be
considered as nanotech, and wherever you look in energy, environment, food and
materials science, developments at the most intimate level have the biggest
potential impact.
Before that happens, here's where it'll turn up first.
Medicine and health. You name it – molecular analysis of samples,
micro-surgery, drug production, monitoring implants, all are huge markets
waiting for the increase in efficiencies, better procedures and plain old cost
savings that'll happen when we better engineer tiny things that interact with
our bodies. For example: tiny robots small enough to fit in a particular size
of syringe that can be powered, controlled and monitored from outside, and
which do real surgery on retinas. Why that size of syringe? That's the largest
that can inject into the eye without requiring sutures.
Read the full article here.
|
|
Last Updated ( July 01, 2008 )
|
