[extropy-chat] Opals to opals

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at hotmail.com> wrote:
> It suddenly came to mind just how many things in our
> natural environment have not even been looked at
> under a traditional microscope, let alone and
> electron microscope or STM. Could it be that many of
> the MNT "parts" necessary for making an assembler
> already exist somewhere out there in various places
> just waiting for someone to stumble onto them and
> bring them into one place? 

Welcome to the field of biomimicry.  It is, indeed,
much easier to copy what's already been created,
although one first has to discover the creation.  It
helps to develop methods of finding other peoples'
discoveries, as well, so you don't have to rediscover
it.

Preserving nature's storehouse of working gadgets for
our catalog is one of the eco-preservationists'
arguments I respect, although I would believe it more
if they didn't say the "...so we can study the
preserved species" bit in whispers as if ashamed of
suggesting that genuine scientific progress could come
from their efforts.

> I can see it now:
> 22 parts protein from rat urine bacteria excretion
> 84 parts carbon from the shell of a beetle
> 16 parts carbon from the slime of cyanobacteria
> Stir into a soup, heat to 1600 degrees and it will
> self-assemble.......
> 
> (OK, so maybe it won't be THAT easy! lol)

You'd be surprised how simple some of the most
effective chemical recipies we use today are.  Going
back in time, they tend to get even simpler.
Gunpowder, for example.  There is a reason ancient man
thought that nature's processes were largely like
baking (active steps: mixing certain amounts of
certain ingredients, and letting set for certain
lengths of time at certain temperatures).