All you need to know about nanobots

A lot of credit goes to physicist Richard Feynman for the concept of nanotechnology as he spoke about miniature machines and huge amounts of encoded information that might pave way for disruptive technologies. He said, “There’s plenty of room at the bottom.”

For the uninformed, nanotechnology is the science and technology at the nanoscale that is exploiting materials at the atomic and molecular level. It has the potential to bring in sustainable development and enhancing human performance and can even diminish the reasons for breaking the peace.

Through his book, Engines of Creation, researcher Eric Drexler introduced the concept of nanotechnology and nanobots to the public. Nanobots, as the term suggests, are tiny robots. They are capable of making nanomaterials from the scratch, atom by atom. Manufacturing a new copy of themselves, they replicate themselves by assembling raw materials and plucking out the atoms they need in an orderly manner. This innovative creation was a vision of researcher Eric Drexler.

A nanorobot is a machine that can build and manipulate things precisely at an atomic level. Researchers and engineers are working and coming up with new ideas in regard to nanobots. Recently, the smallest engine was created from just a single atom. It converts heat into motion. Moreover, using DNA origami machine parts are being developed that can be later applied to DNA itself. Nanoswimmers are being developed to deliver drugs and can even swim through our bloodstream to target the cancer cells.

Biological applications are a major reason behind breakthroughs in nanobots. These further include sperm-inspired nanobots and bacteria-powered ones. Cancer treatment, drug delivery, medical imagining, sensing devices, information encoding and storage and ocean cleaning are all the widespread applications of nanobots.

As mentioned earlier, they are built on an atomic scale and thus have the capability to pull apart any material, atom by atom. In recent times of nanobot application, they are being used in cockroaches. Termed as DNA nanobots, they fold and unfold DNA and are used for delivering drugs.

The question arises: Are they a danger to us?

Even though there is a high probability of it, the question hasn’t been answered with affirmation yet. Dexter suggested that a few nanobots multiply out of control, they could easily form a swarm of these lethal machines, which though are tiny and precisely engineered, harbour a great amount of threat. The nanobot takeover is termed as grey-goo. They can pull apart every living thing in their path, atom by atom. It would take them mere three or four hours to cover the Earth with their deadly population!

So far they don’t exist, but whenever it is that they do, all the developments that take place will have to strike a perfect balance between helping us live a better life and not disrupting the entire world.