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"World Peace, Universal Prosperity"
The pressure for rapid development of nanotech is enormous. The surprising properties of materials at the nano scale have opened up a new universe of industrial applications and entrepreneurial dreams. Largely unnoticed, hundreds of products containing nano-sized particles have already reached the market -- metal surfaces and paints so slick they clean themselves when it rains; organic light-emitting diodes for computer screens, digital cameras and cell phones; sub-miniature data storage devices (aiming to hold the Library of Congress in a computer the size of a sugar cube); specialty lubricants; long-mileage vehicle tires; nano-reinforced plastics for stronger automobile fenders; lightweight military armor; anti-reflective and scratch-resistant sun glasses; super-slippery ski wax; powerful tennis rackets and long-lasting tennis balls; inkjet photographic paper intended to hold an image for 100 years; high-contrast MRI scanners for medical diagnosis; efficient drug and vaccine delivery systems; vitamins in a spray; invisible sunscreen ointments containing nano particles of titanium or zinc; anti-wrinkle cosmetic creams; and so on.
And this is just the beginning. Nanotech wasn't possible until the invention in the 1980s and early 1990s of ways to arrange individual atoms under software control. Nano particles, nanotubes and carbon nano crystals called Bucky Balls (after Buckminster Fuller) are now being manufactured in ton quantities for industrial use. Currently technologists are working feverishly to coax nature's most successful nano factory, the living cell, to grow useful new nano assemblies. It is no exaggeration to say that the field of nanotech is gripped by something approaching a gold rush mentality. Worldwide, governments are spending an estimated $3 billion per year on nanotech research, and the private sector is thought to be spending at least that much. The U.S. government alone will spend at least $3.7 billion on nano R&D during the next four years. The global market for nano products is expected to reach $1 trillion in 10 years or less. Any day of the week you can check in at and catch a glimpse of the gold rush in action.
But for some prominent proponents of nanotech, this is about more than money -- it is about reinventing the entire world, including humans, as they now exist. According to the U.S. National Science Foundation, nanotechnology is the foundation stone of NBIC -- a revolutionary convergence of nanotech, biotech (manipulation of genes), info tech (computers), and cogno tech (brain function). In a report sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce, the technologists and politicians who are promoting this revolution say it is "essential to the future of humanity" because it holds the promise of "world peace, universal prosperity, and evolution to a higher level of compassion and accomplishment." They say it may be "a watershed in history to rank with the invention of agriculture and the Industrial Revolution." The ultimate aim of this revolution has been an explicit human goal for at least 400 years -- the "conquest of nature" and the enhancement of human capabilities.
Whatever else it may offer, the nanotech revolution entails a radical new approach to industrial production with the potential to change every existing industry, plus create new ones. Typical manufacturing today -- even construction of the tiniest computer circuit -- relies on "top-down" techniques, machining or etching products out of blocks of raw material. For example, a common technique for making a transistor begins with a chunk of silicon, which is etched to remove unwanted material, leaving behind a sculpted circuit. This "top-down" method of construction creates the desired product plus waste residues.
In contrast, nanotech makes possible "bottom-up" construction in which atoms are arranged under software control -- or in ideal cases they will self-assemble, just as living cells self-assemble -- into the desired configuration with nothing left over, no waste. Instead of cutting trees into lumber to make a table, why not just "grow" a table? Thus nanotech seems to offer the possibility of waste-free manufacturing and therefore a cleaner environment. Furthermore, nanotech may help remediate past pollution. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is funding research on releasing nano particles into the environment to detoxify mountains of toxic waste remaining from the 20th century's experiment with petroleum-based chemistry.
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