Entire World's Population in Montana: Big Sky Living

Josh Hall was inspired by the recent opening of the world's tallest building in Dubai. Josh feels that if 5,000 people could live in high luxury in a tower with a footprint of under 2 acres, then a taller tower (1 mile high) with a footprint of 5 acres could house 40,000 people in luxury.

Now, if you place a mile-high tower inside a square mile section of land, with its 5 acre footprint taking up less than 1% of the land area, you could put everyone currently living on Earth into a land area the size of the state of Montana. Virtually all of the surrounding land would still be available for farming, industry, parks -- or solar and wind farms if you really enjoy wasting money.

The point is that with advanced construction methods, it takes very little land area to house large numbers of people. I admit that it would be a challenge to provide food, water, power, and sanitation to such a concentration of population. But providing broadband communication and high speed rail transport to everyone in the world would suddenly get easier.

The graph above shows the trend in tallest buildings on Earth, over time. Josh suggests that by the year 2065, the tallest building on Earth should be about a mile in height. Read the whole thing.

More on recent large tower construction from Brian Wang

Another great article from Josh compares autogeny to autopoiesis. One goal of nanotechnology is the creation of useful machines that can self-replicate. Another goal of nano is to put a "replicator" in every home -- no matter how humble. Such replicators would be able to turn garbage and dirt into new homes, automobiles, airplanes -- even spacecraft. Tiny nano-tatoos would capture sunlight and recycle waste CO2 in the blood  -- along with the nitrogen and oxygen in the air -- into carbohydrates and protein and fat so you would rarely have to eat -- a multi vitamin / mineral tablet would suffice.  Losing weight would be a snap.  Drinking water requirements would be minimal -- thanks to  super-efficient nano-boosted kidneys.

An autopoietic system is a process,not an object. It can not only make its own parts but does so constantly, replacing the ones it’s made of (“continuously regenerate”). It has an identity that is more like that of the Ship of Theseus than a simple object. You and I are autopoietic on a number of different levels: Our cells constantly rebuild and replace themselves on the molecular level; our minds constantly learn and re-integrate the ideas they’re made of — memories not regularly used and re-remembered tend to fade. _Nanodot

The imaginations of a Josh Hall and an Eric Drexler are immense. Nanotechnology is on the brink of acquiring real traction in the world. Once that begins to happen, expect a new generation of imaginative minds to leap into nano.

It might change the entire concept of economics.

Nanotech Cancer Blitz

Nanotech researchers are taking many different approaches to designing novel cancer therapies.

The "smart bomb" approach actually uses nano-explosives to "shock" cancer cells into taking their medicine.

The power of these nano explosives could lead to a breakthrough in drug delivery for cancer and HIV, the researchers explain. First, drugs would be administered with a needle as usual, dispersing through the entire body. But then a hand-held device aimed at the tumor would send a pulse into the tumor. The shock waves created by the pulse would make tiny holes in the cells it was aimed at, allowing the drug to enter the tumor cells. Further, the force of the shock waves would push the drugs to those cells within milliseconds.

The researchers have tested the method on animal tissue, and have demonstrated a 99% success rate – almost all of the cells have properly accepted the drugs....“In conventional explosives, shock waves are generated during detonation,” she [Gangopadhyay] says. “In nanothermites, fast propagating chemical reactions can create shock waves without detonation.” Generating shock waves without detonation is the key to this technology, she says.

Physorg

Nanotubes can serve as nano-hypos for inserting cancer drugs directly into tumour cells.

Nanomagnets can attach to cell membrane receptors, allowing "remote control" of internal cell processes at will.

Gold nanoparticles can hunt down and signal the presence of cancer cells, using dyes that absorb and emit light in near infrared, to allow signals to pass unimpeded through biological tissues.

The California Nanosystems Institute (at UCLA) is developing several nanomachines for use in on-demand delivery of cancer drugs to tumours.

Nanomedicine Timeline

Image source and more information: Nanowerk

Nanotechnology has a significant role to play in the future of medicine, just as it is indispensable to the future of energy.

Nanomedicine not only includes a wide range of technologies that can be applied to medical devices, materials, procedures, and treatment modalities, but this emerging field also will evolve dramatically in the years and decades to come, likely with unexpected breakthroughs that are impossible to predict.

According to an expert group of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA), "the majority of current commercial applications of nanotechnology to medicine is geared towards drug delivery to enable new modes of action, as well as better targeting and bioavailability of existing medicinal substances. Novel applications of nanotechnology include nanostructure scaffolds for tissue replacement, nanostructures that allow transport across biological barriers, remote control of nanoprobes, integrated implantable sensory nanoelectronic systems and multifunctional chemical structures for drug delivery and targeting of disease."

Nanowerk

More information on Nanomedicine:

Robert A. Freitas "Nanomedicine Vol. I"
Nanowerk Nanotechnology Reports

Read more at Brian Wang's Advanced Nanotechnology

Smelling Cancer With Nanotechnology

We have known for years that dogs are capable of smelling cancer on a person's breath or urine. Now scientists are developing nanotech protein sensor arrays for "smelling" cancer--as early screening tests.

To create the protein sensors, the scientists used six gold nanoparticle–fluorescent polymer conjugates. These particles serve as both selective recognition elements as well as quenchers for the polymer. The subsequent binding of protein analytes displaces the dyes, regenerating the fluorescence.

....By modulating the nanoparticle–protein and/or nanoparticle–dye association, distinct signal response patterns can then be used to differentiate the proteins. The fluorescent indicator displacement assay does not require special instruments, and its sensitivity (due in large part to the high surface area provided by the nanoparticles) and speed facilitate protein detection.
Rotello points out that real-world applications require identification of proteins at varying concentrations and of unknown identity. "Varying protein concentrations would be expected to lead to the drastic alteration of fluorescence response patterns for the proteins, making identification of proteins with both unknown identity and concentration challenging. To enable the detection of unknown proteins, we have designed a protocol combining LDA and ultraviolet (UV) measurements."
In their experiments, the researchers also used a series of unknown protein solutions for quantitative detection. The unknown protein solutions were submitted to the testing procedures: of the 52 unknown protein samples, only three samples were incorrectly identified, affording an identification accuracy of 94.2%.
"Our overall goal is to develop a more holistic approach to detecting diseases" says Rotello. "The plan is to monitor levels of proteins in the body, as opposed to looking for just a single marker." Of course, the key question is whether disease can effectively be 'smelled' – are there detectable differences in the relative ratios of proteins that can be used for diagnostic purposes?"

Source

Hat tip Our Technological Future and Nanotechnology Now.

The potential for near-term development of nano-sensors for health care, research, and industrial safety and process control, is enormous. In ten years it will be difficult to imagine life without ubiquitous nano-sensors, just as it is difficult now to imagine life without cell phones, wireless internet, and mp3 players.
;-)

Inexpensive urine tests and breath tests will provide physicians and practitioners with early alerts that should save tens of thousands of lives a year, at the least. As the technology improves, the utility of these nano-sensors will grow as their dimensions shrink.

Nano News Shorts

Delivery of drugs via nano-particles is becoming a booming industry. Such nano-encapsulation of therapeutic agents is likely to be very useful for treating cancer and Alzheimer's disease. Eyedrops for treating glaucoma may soon incorporate nano-encapsulated drugs.

Do you find it difficult at times to keep up with your children? Imagine strap-on gloves and stockings that incorporate nano-tube adhesive. Voila! Instant spider-man children. The little urchins will be climbing the walls and ceilings with little effort. Skyscrapers would be next.

TEBAL--transmission electron beam ablation lithography--is capable of fabricating devices smaller than 10 nm. This technique may enable tiny sensors, molecular sized transistors, and ultra-small DNA sequencers.

Here is a look at the recent Cornell symposium "The Future of Nanotechnology."

While all of these news reports discuss beneficial uses of nanotechnology, you can be sure that behind the scenes, military uses are being researched and developed.

Between nanotechnolgy, biotechnology, and auto-controlled robotics, the world is becoming much more complex.

200 X Better than Tamiflu Against H5N1 Avian Flu?

In vitro activities of AviFluCide, specific to H5N1, and of FluCide, lead us to suggest that AviFluCide could be as much as 100-200X (10,000% to 20,000%) more efficacious in H5N1 avian influenza treatment than oseltamivir. Nanoviricides are being constructed against Rabies, Dengue virus and Hepatitis C virus. Our technology also enables the possibility of stockpiling one drug that can specifically attack a number of pathogens. Additionally, nanoviricides open up an interesting new approach to epidemic threat containment. Theoretically, a nanoviricide can be constructed against a field pathogen using antibody fragments as ligands, leading to the fastest possible response to a natural epidemic or bioterrorism threat.

At the recent Nanotech 2007 Conference in Santa Clara, the president of Nanoviricides unveiled an electron microcraph showing the destruction of murine CMV by a nanoviricide. Here is an abstract of the presentation.

Although Tamiflu is a relatively old antiviral drug, it is currently seen as the best defense against an avian flu outbreak/pandemic in humans.

Nanomedicine offers the ability to approach age-old medical problems from a fresh perspective. Nanotechnology opens the door to the perspectives of workers from several disciplines that contribute to nanomedical principles.

Although large pharmaceutical companies tend to fall into the type of unimaginative ruts that plague all large organisations, the ability of small focused startups in biotech and nanotech medicine allow the constant infusion of new ideas and techniques into the larger field of pharmacology and pharma-therapy.

This type of startup activity feeding into larger pre-existing industry is only possible in a culture that values independence of thought and action. Such a culture tolerates the inevitable risk that accompanies startups--venture capital, entrepreneurial risk, etc.

Such revolutionary activity could not occur so freely in cultures that value security over all else. That is why so many cutting-edge researchers tend to migrate away from nanny/security cultures to more open opportunity cultures.