So you want to live for one hundred and fifty years, what do you think the world looks
like? I imagine a world where energy is clean and essentially free, a world where the
text of every book ever written and every movie ever made could be stored in a one inch
cube, a world where heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, even cancer no longer exist.
A world where you can live for 150 years, maybe even longer.
Nano robotics could create this world.
The research is happening right now and scientists are both elated and terrified.
Let's find out what. Welcome to the Y files, where smart folks like us come to
laugh and learn today, we're talking about nano robotics and the endless possibilities
for their application. Now, imagine if you could take a robot the size of Godzilla.
It's really hard shot yet she's not here.
What are you talking about? Who's not here?
Nana. You said this episode we're going to talk about Nana and robots.
No, no, that's not what we love when it comes to visit.
She never covers my goal and she even takes me for walks.
How on earth does she take you for?
Well, we walk. I sing.
Come on, Eileen.
It's her favorite.
OK, this went off the rails fast.
We're talking about nano robotics now.
So really small robots.
Yes, kinda.
The science of nano robotics is engineering and technology, chemistry and biology all
conducted at the nanoscale and progress in nanotech is moving so quickly that the world
as we know it, it's going to change forever.
What was once science fiction is now within our grasp.
And whenever you have new technology, you also have new dangers.
Let's get into it. And nanotechnology.
The nanoscopic scale refers to structures with the length of one to one hundred
nanometers. So what's a nanometre, the height of one that you're going to do this the
whole time? A lot of just warming up.
Great. It's going to be one of those anyway.
A nanometre is one billionth of a metre.
So really, really small.
Here's some perspective. The ratio of a meter to a nanometre is roughly the same as the
earth to a marble.
A strand of DNA is about two and a half nanometres, but the thickness of a sheet of paper
is about one hundred thousand nanometres.
So really small nano robotics is engineering at the atomic level.
And because this technology operates on such a small scale, it has the potential to
manipulate all sorts of things, including the building blocks of life.
So how did this all start?
Well, in nineteen fifty nine, American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman gave a
speech entitled There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.
And Feynman imagined a day when machines could be miniaturized and masses of information
could be encoded in tiny structures.
Although he was a Nobel laureate, Feynman went largely ignored for a couple of decades.
Sounds like 18 years now.
You're just being mean to to yay.
Well, then in nineteen eighty six, engineer Kay Eric Drexler cited Feynman speech in his
nineteen eighty six book Engines of Creation The Coming Era of Nanotechnology.
Drechsler Imagine a world where the entire Library of Congress could fit on a chip the
size of a sugar cube.
He also introduced what he called Universal Assemblers, which are microscopic machines.
Drechsler saw all kinds of uses for these machines, external uses like cleaning up
environmental pollutants by removing particles from the air, but also internal solutions
like fighting diseases, clearing blockages in the human body.
Now, since these nanobots work on an atomic level, they could build and manipulate pretty
much anything from scratch.
Tiny robots manipulating atoms.
What could possibly go wrong?
Funny you mention that Drechsler also proposed the nightmare scenario where these nanobots
would begin duplicating themselves to the point of mass environmental extinction.
I should counting nano robotics has come a long way since the early days.
Now the field is dominated by biological technology rather than the mechanical assemblers
theorized by Drechsler.
And unlike typical robots, these tiny machines are more like molecules and can actually
use DNA as a building material.
So I come in a mile away.
Let's take a quick look at some of the biological micromachines in development around the
world, and researchers at the University of Mines in Germany built the smallest engine
ever from just a single atom in real world.
Engines convert heat energy into movement, and this little nano engine does exactly the
same thing. The atom is trapped in an electromagnetic cone that's heated and then cooled
with a laser just over and over and over again.
And it causes it to move back and forth just like a little piston engineers at Ohio State
designed and constructed complex nanoscale mechanical parts using a process known as DNA
origami. And this method proved that common design principles used to build basic machine
parts can also be applied to DNA producing complex, controllable components on a tiny
scale. Zurich, along with Technion researchers, have developed an elastic nano swimmer
about 15 millions of a metre long and 200 nanometres thick that can move through
biological fluid environments.
These nano swimmers are magnetically controlled and can be used to deliver targeted
therapies to specific individual cells.
And over at the University of Cambridge, they've developed and now I think they make a
cream for that Antz A.S.
actuating nano transducers.
Now, these are tiny engines capable of a force per unit weight ratio nearly 100 times
higher than any motor or muscle.
And the hope is that the ants can help power nano robots small enough to enter living
cells to fight diseases.
And the list goes on and on.
Bacteria powered nanobots, remote controlled nano rockets, carbon tube, micro sponges and
metamaterials that are mind blowing strong.
So what can we do with all this nano stuff?
Let's start with some of the medical applications.
A main field of nanobot study involves drug delivery at the cellular level.
This could really limit the side effects and other unexpected reactions that come from
new pharmaceuticals vaccines.
We can even use nanotech to spot illnesses very early on.
Nanoparticles could gather in certain tissues.
And when scan with an MRI help highlight problems such as diabetes.
My great uncle Goldi had diabetes.
He had to have his lower left Kordofan amputated.
Oh, that's terrible. He was.
You can only swim counterclockwise after that.
Is that right? Last time he came over, he turned his place into a whirlpool.
I still get your just thinking about it.
If it's his lower left caudal fin that doesn't that mean he could only swim airable with
the diabetes? Terrible.
You know, I'm not going to engage.
That reminds me that we switched my food to gluten free.
Nanobots could also keep veins and arteries clear, removing blockages and plaque from
arterial walls to help fight heart disease.
And then there's the medical holy grail curing cancer.
Since cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth that spread throughout
the entire body, nanobots could be a valuable weapon.
And using nano therapy instead of radiation or chemo or surgery, we can eliminate side
effects like hair loss, nausea and fatigue by targeting only the cells that are sick and
leaving the healthy cells alone.
Nano robotics also offers tremendous potential for other industries.
For example, data storage.
How many full hard drives the ablate around?
Bioengineers and geneticist at Harvard have successfully stored around 700 terabytes of
data in a single gram of DNA.
Think about that storage.
That's the same as two hundred thousand HD movies.
That's bigger than the entire Netflix catalogue.
Thirty one times bigger.
And it's all in a droplet that would fit on the tip of your pinky.
And just like Drexler predicted decades ago, it seems as though nano robotics can
actually help clean up the planet.
Carbon nanotubes sponges are 100 times stronger than steel, but six times lighter.
You release them into water and they're capable of soaking up contaminants such as
fertilizers, pesticides, pharmaceuticals three times faster than current technology.
I need one of those nano sponges.
My water is filthy.
You know, if it was yeshe clean my mulvany, I clean your bowl every day.
Yeah, but Nana does it with love.
I could try doing it with love.
Yeah. You know what, I'm good.
Suit yourself. Let's look at one last possibility of nanotechnology that will either
thrill you or scare the crap out of you, nano robotics could be used to connect our
brains directly to the Internet.
Now, no, I'm going to need my hat for this.
Ok. OK, hang on.
Hang on. There you go.
No hat for you.
I'm good. I love telling you.
I told you so. So connecting our brains directly to the cloud.
Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is certain that this will happen by 20 30 and his
track record is pretty good.
He's made one hundred and forty seven predictions since the 1990s and 115 of them have
happened and another 12 only turned out to be off by a year or two.
His predictions have an eighty six percent accuracy rate, and if his streak holds, start
expecting our biological nervous system to be wired into the cloud within the next
decade. Think of the convenience of having all of Google accessible to your brain
immediately. So you trust Google with your brain a.
Ah, I see the problem with that hat hat, there you go.
60 years ago, nanotechnology was just a concept.
Now that it's here, we need to encourage innovation.
So the benefits of nanotech are too numerous to count from health care to the
environment, data storage, green energy.
But we also have to acknowledge the risk, especially since we're talking about technology
that can manipulate life on an atomic level.
As the science develops and nanobots become more sophisticated, malfunctions are
inevitable. But what if they end up functioning too well?
What if, like some futurists predict, nanobots learn to self replicate or even become
self-aware? How will we know?
And by that time, will it be too late?
Thanks for hanging out with us today.
My name is A.J. that's Hellfish and this has been the Y files today.
We talked about the emerging field of nanotechnology.
How do you guys feel about nanotech?
Would you be comfortable having a tiny robot army coursing through your veins?
What else could nanotechnology be used for?
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