My wife is a nutritionist and the cover story of the September 2007 Journal of the American Dietetic Association is “Nanotechnology: The future of dietetics at one-billionth the size.” I was so happy to see this. Now my wife has to take my ramblings of the future and the Singularity a little more seriously. And I was also glad to see this on the cover because I feel like it means we are closer to this future. If “the premier source for the practice and science of food, nutrition, and dietetics” is putting it on the cover, then nanobots in the blood is becoming reality and is no longer the ramblings of a crackpot futurist.
Ray Kurzweil often mentions that scientists have already designed a nanobot the size of a red blood cell that will allow you to run a marathon without taking a breath, or to sit at the bottom of the swimming pool for hours. Or when your heart stops beating, you will be able to wait a couple of days before calling the doctor. This nanobot has already been designed - we just do not yet have the tools to create it (or at least no one has publicly admitted it).
But the technology is not far off at all.
If you don’t believe me, check out this article about a microscopic robot that has been produced to travel through and clear arteries:

Once inside a blocked artery, it is able to release drugs to dissolve blood clots, which are often the cause of heart attacks.

The robot has three short front legs and three longer back legs which are attached to a central rectangular body.

By attaching grafted heart muscle to the legs, the scientists found the legs would bend as the muscle cells contracted. The cells get their energy from sugar in the patient’s blood.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm and is filed under futures, health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.