31–40 of 47 posts
This is awesome, but I think these will need an EOL/self-destruct mechanism. What happens if these things just linger in the body after performing a function like destroying cancer cells?
Is there anything besides ( massive ) engineering challenges standing between more advanced devices like this physically eating away at cancerous tumors in the same way physicians use special maggots for wound debridement?
Calling those robots is a bit misleading, because they lack self-control. Control logic we know is large for very small robots. If you want a micron-scale robot you only get about 100 transistors for its "intelligence"[1]. There are certainly things it could do, but probably not autonomously navigate, map and recognize tumors. We just don't have the expertise for those kinds of thing, at least not yet. A plethora of…
Not the headline we need to quell the vaccine conspiracy theories..
Basically, if we're worried about modern mass surveillance, try to imagine a situation in which nano-scale surveillance is possible of large numbers of people, with devices that attach to nearly anything, are virtually invisible and could potentially even have the capacity to record location, audio and video of anything they're applied to, including both targeted civilians and large areas in which you could never be sure whether or not some government/police controlled army of microscopic bots is watching, tracking and listening. Don't tell me that exactly that wouldn't occur to both corporations and governments as this develops further.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling those robots is a bit misleading, because they lack self-control. Control logic we know is large for very small robots. If you want a micron-scale robot you only get about 100 transistors for its "intelligence"[1]. There are certainly things it could do, but probably not autonomously navigate, map and recognize tumors. We just don't have the expertise for those kinds of thing, at least not yet. A plethora of…
Maybe the route toward what I'm envisioning (and hoping for) is genetically engineered or enhanced cells. Modify and existing system that already does a lot instead of trying to recreate a cell from the ground up.
Immunotherapy looks for ways to counteract this 'feature' and allow the immune system to do its job and murder the bastards.
We're still effectively in the early days of this approach to treating cancer and results are mixed, but it shows incredible promise and I feel that it ultimately will be the way we beat most if not all cancers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling those robots is a bit misleading, because they lack self-control. Control logic we know is large for very small robots. If you want a micron-scale robot you only get about 100 transistors for its "intelligence"[1]. There are certainly things it could do, but probably not autonomously navigate, map and recognize tumors. We just don't have the expertise for those kinds of thing, at least not yet. A plethora of…
100 transistors might be enough for a “triangulation” circuit. Hold three RF emitters around the tumor outside the patient’s body and the robot will navigate to the point equidistant from all three emitters and start destroying tissue. You could move the orbs around to eat away the tumor, then filter them out of the bloodstream with a dialysis machine.
Not the headline we need to quell the vaccine conspiracy theories..
By vaccine conspiracy theories , I'm assuming you mean the aspect about microchips secretly being added to vaccines. But doesn't it actually add validity to the technological aspects of these concerns when a newly published paper details successfully adding 1 million microchips capable of injection into the human body? How wouldn't it? Obviously this doesn't touch on the nefarious underpinnings of the vaccine debate,…
Yes, it does add a tiny bit of validity to the technical aspect. Which is a bad thing, because it encourages those people. Even worse, the headline sounds like it adds much more validity than it actually does, so the bad encouragement is magnified based on their lack of understanding.
There is no cognitive dissonance in saying "ugh, those morons are going to act like this proves their entire claim right, when it actually takes the claim from being incorrect in 44 different ways to being incorrect in 'only' 43 and a half different ways". Nobody is disregarding the evidence here.
Is there anything besides ( massive ) engineering challenges standing between more advanced devices like this physically eating away at cancerous tumors in the same way physicians use special maggots for wound debridement?
Can we get batteries that are small enough and powerful enough to do it? This example is powered by lasers, it looks like they have to shoot a laser first at the front legs then again at the back legs in order to get it to walk. If we are able to shoot a laser at the robot walking on the tumor without damaging the surrounding tissue, why not just shoot it at the tumor?
Many here have commented on the lamentable weaknesses of this development in terms of size constraints and so forth, and on possible medical applications, which could indeed be fascinating and useful for saving lives, but what about the much darker potential of technology like this developing heavily: Basically, if we're worried about modern mass surveillance, try to imagine a situation in which nano-scale surveillan…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think of transistors as analog computational devices, 100 is not that small. There are animals with ~200-300 neurons, so it's at least within the range of possibility to have a fairly autonomous robot with only 100.
A neuron contains thousands if not millions of transistor-equivalents in the form of gene level and ion level switches. I'm not saying that you couldn't do it with 100 transistors, or that everything in a neuron is needed for this application, but I just wanted to clarify.