The Nanites Are Coming!

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You know those stories where nanites rearrange a person's dna? Well, a million of these puppies will fit in a single red blood cell, and they can theoretically do just that:

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/nano/nanoscale-robot-arm-p...

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Yes but..?

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PattieBFine's picture

let's see... take a Y... origami build a replication of the upper structure... you get an X .... Humm... if all males were infested with such, could they produce a Y type sperm? Or, would they then produce to much estrogen, and shut down sperm production entirely? What would happen if no more males were ever born? Now, I must say!, I've read a few where the women were gone... why have not any been writen where the men disapear?

Is this a bline spot? Or just me being blind and not seen such?

Fearsome

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erin's picture

DNA has the ability to replicate itself. Is anyone planning to make this guy work in orbit or something? Here's a Doomsday scenario if ever I heard of one.

TG plot (It's been done): An experiment with these machines goes wrong and a virus-like snippet escapes the lab and mutates. The mutant form turns off the male sustaining DNA in human cells and turns on the female sustaining parts. If done realistically, this would not be a complete transformation but male bodies would begin producing estrogen.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Be Not Afraid, Erin

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I'm sure only ethical companies will take advantage of this technology.

Just look at the wonderful things Monsanto has accomplished, without any real negative. . . . Oh yeah -- be afraid, be very afraid.

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

Angela Rasch (Jill M I)

And, here I was...

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thinking you were going to mention Union Carbide... Who's very safe plant in Bhopal... Oops.

Be not afraid.

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Damned funny, but Sick, Angela. LOL. I loved it.

You know, I look around me from time to time. About once a month, probably,
and I think to myself, that things really haven't changed all that much. TV is
a little different than when I was young, but I don't watch much of that.
Computers are the biggest change, I suppose, and they are huge; but , life itself
seems only a little different. No Moon-base. No undersea cities.

Then I run into something like this, Pippa, and it's really a shock how close
we are to the edge of all the Science Fiction I've ever read. I suppose the real
changes are the ones you don't notice until they've piled up on you.

Interesting site. Thank you Pippa.

Sarah

Doomsday Scenarios

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There are easily a billion or so (or maybe an infinite amount of) "oopses" that could make sustaining life impossible. Our DNA is what it is today because probably trillions of permutations along the way didn't work. Imagine a nanite "virus" that changed the gene that tells the bone marrow to make hemoglobin into one that makes chlorophyll. It's a tiny change. Or one that causes whatever makes a neurotransmitter to make it into something useless.

There are an awful lot of "leverage points" in a living body. Systems that tell other systems what to make and when to make it. One little unauthorized change, and not good...

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