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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Robert Bradbury wrote:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=robert.bradbury@gmail.com
href="mailto:robert.bradbury@gmail.com">Robert Bradbury</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">ExI chat list</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Friday, January 27, 2006 9:06
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [extropy-chat] Computing
Power: Moore's Law keeps going and goingand going</DIV>
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<DIV><SPAN class=gmail_quote>On 1/26/06, <B class=gmail_sendername>Adrian
Tymes</B> <<A href="mailto:wingcat@pacbell.net">wingcat@pacbell.net</A>>
wrote:</SPAN>
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Even if it is made top-down like traditional litho, rather
than<BR> bottom-up molecular-manufacturing-style - if it's
dealing with<BR> individual elements < 1 micron, it's real
nanotech.</BLOCKQUOTE><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT>
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size=2></FONT><BR>By your definition perhaps. In my mind "real
nanotechnology" has to meet the NSF specification of < 100 nm and it has to
be assembled small-molecule by small-molecule (just as the human body is) with
a very high degree of positional accuracy. </DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The unit of biology is the cell not the atom. Its
the cell that does the replicating and any particular human body we
have experience of to date has developed from cells, not atoms. Sure, I think
along with just about everyone that isn't a supernaturalist that somewhere,
somehow the first cell *must* have formed naturally from smaller
elements but *how* that happened is not currently known. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The significance of this in relation to nanotech
speculations is that it is the cell which is a living replicator and
its not nanoscale its micron scale. </FONT> DNA does not
replicate on its own. Ribosomes don't work outside of their cellular
environments. </DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV> Ion implantation of traditional lithography generally does *not*
achieve the same accuracy that most enzymes do. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV> At 45nm you are probably 10-100 times larger than the scale
biological systems are generally working at. <BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The *generally* in that sentence is one hell of a
hard working word. Cellular membranes are around 6nm. Cellular membranes are
important because they compartmentalise regions in which biochemisty takes
place. In order for oxidative phosphorylation to work, or to stop free
radicals spilling out of organelles,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>you need to maintain membrane integrity. ie. You
need to maintain the integrity of something that is only 6nm thick and exists as
it exists only within certain</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>limits of temperature, pressure, pH
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<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
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The rest of your post only commented on the rise of
computer<BR> chips, and said nothing about glucose-powered fuel
cells. <BR> There'd be quite a market *right now* for
glucose-powered<BR> "fuel cells" that don't actually produce
useful amounts of<BR> power but do consume significant (relative
to the average<BR> obese American's body) amounts of glucose.
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size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR>Agreed. But if that is
you goal it isn't hard. Just filter the glucose out of you blood and
circulate it into a bag containing bacteria that utilize the glucose to
produce light. If you make the bag into a transparent suit jacket you
can glow in the dark while losing weight. <BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I am not an expert in this. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>But there are feedback mechanisms in place such
that glycolysis operates sometimes and gluconeogenesis other times and various
GLUT receptors on various types of cells are sensing different levels of blood
glucose. The balance of metabolic systems will be effected by adding in
*anything* new. *How* it will be effected is hard to say unless the person
proposing to add the thing in can say what its characteristics are and where it
would be located. Would the nanobot glucose burner only be in the bloodstream or
would it be cells, if so which cells. So far as I know those aspects are never
adequately filled in in nanobot flights of fancy. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There are whole homeostastis mechanisms that don't
get touched with a level of analysis that says "just filter the glucose out of
your blood". "Just filter" how? "Just filter" where?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Brett Paatsch</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>