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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 3131175" data-attributes="member: 7533">Simply put, anti-matter is thoroughly impractical as a power source or weapons-grade explosive.  It's far too expensive and troublesome to make and to store.  that sort of technology, at this point, doesn't even fall into the Hard Sci-fi category.but usually when nono-tech gets presented in fiction you dump it on a pile of wood, and and up pops a chair after a (very) short while. As if the nanite were solar powered... or perhaps (very) convienently wood-powered. Nanites are damn small - that's the point, so they really can't be solar powered  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> - no surface area. Most likely they'll have to be chemically powered, so are a lot like bacteria.Exactly.  Bio-engineered viruses and bacteria are nano-bots.  And we already use them in that capacity.  For example...Converting alcohols into sugars.Producing medicines, such as penicillin or insulin.Cleaning up environmental wastes.Synthesizing vitamins.And other more recent and exotic things, such as...<a href="http://www.electronicproducts.com/ShowPage.asp?FileName=olrr01.oct2006.html" target="_blank">Running a microscopic motor.</a>or<a href="http://www.physorg.com/news10615.html" target="_blank">Salvaging precious metals from electronic components.</a>It's not as tough as you think, Morg...The trick is to build your nanotech (GEed bacteria or virus) to do a specific job in a specific part of the body.  Bacteria already do that sort of thing...  A bacteria geared for giving you food poisoning has a very hard time living anywhere outside your stomach and intestines.  And you can't get tetanus by eating a rusty nail. You engineer a trait into the bacteria so that it simply dies off after a certain amount of time...  Or have certain biochemical triggers that activate the bacteria or render it "dormant".  The presence or absence of a certain concentration of adrenaline, for example, would be a good trigger for fast-healing nanites.Again, it's not quite as difficult as it seems.We've already got engineered bacteria that can build a perfect crystaline lattice or polymer chains.  And that's the key.  Crystals get built in naturally straight lines.  Nanites (in bacteria form) would be great at building perfectly regular shapes.  All the nanite needs to know is "Find this kind of molecule and stack this molecule on top of that molecule in this way.  Do it again."  Soon, you've got a spool of thread, or a rod, or a flat plate, or a disc, or a sphere or whatever.Also, nanotech would be great for replacing one type of material with another.  That's an easy one.All that's true, but I don't think certain nano-tech jobs will be quite as difficult as you think.  Industrial and medical fields will be their strengths, since those are within the provices of a bacteria's natural environment, purpose and operating parameters.Where people get screwed up is thinking that nano-tech will be actual "tiny robots", or that it will have any sort of computing/intelligence or communication powers.  That's rediculous.  Real world bacteria nanites will be specifically programmed to do a specific job under specific circumstances, and nothing else.</blockquote>

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