Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/356
Nanotechnology, for Better or for Worse Mike Treder AI 56 Feb 2009 bIo enhAnCeD nAno neURo hUMoR FoReVeR YoUng W hen K. eric Drexler popularized the word 'nanotechnology' in the 1980s, he was describing what we now call molecular manufacturing: building machines on the scale of molecules, a few nanometers wide — motors, robot arms, and even whole computers — far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next ten years describing and analyzing these projected advances, and responding to accusations that his ideas were science fi ction. Meanwhile, chemists and biotechnologists were developing the ability to build simple structures on a molecular scale. As nanotechnology became an accepted (and well-funded) concept, the meaning of the word broadened to encompass these simpler kinds of nanometer- scale technologies. Most of the current work that carries the label 'nanotechnology' is not nanotechnology in the original meaning. It is, instead, a set of related fi elds making use of properties unique to the nanoscale, so that factories can