Nano Suddenly A Gigantic Label

from the everything's-nano dept

When people first started talking about nanotechnology, they really were talking about building machines or robots at the molecular level. However, since the term has caught on (especially with those doling out the money) the the term nanotechnology is suddenly being applied to much broader scientific research. Someone I know who works at a "nanotechnology" company has always said that it's purely a marketing term. All the company really does is standard chemistry work. This seems to be going on in plenty of companies (and universities) that want a piece of the money allotted to "nanotechnology research". Of course, plenty of useful things are still likely to come out of this research, but it's nothing all that new. As for nanotech robots? "There's no real credible research in nanobots. Zero."
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 16 Jun 2003 @ 12:53pm

    No Subject Given

    Mork from Ork knew this one years ago:

    "Nano, Nano!"

    - AC

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Bob, 16 Jun 2003 @ 8:41pm

    No Subject Given

    There is. We're working on it here at MIT. Have been for years. Robots aren't quite nanolithic yet though. At the moment they're the size of air gun pelletes and they live in a vat of protein. Last year they were as large as golf balls. It's only a matter of time.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    mhh5, 16 Jun 2003 @ 10:34pm

    Nanobot research...

    I don't think that building nanobots like scaled-down cars is quite the right approach....
    Personally, I think "nanotechnologists" are missing out on doing fundamental research on self-assembly. People should learn from nature and how bacteria assemble themselves. Nature doesn't use lithography. Just my $0.02 worth....

    But really, who cares what you call it as long as you make useful stuff? :)

    link to this | view in thread ]


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