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NASA + NCI = Nano-Explorers For Humans
SEWilco writes: "NASA and the National Cancer Institute will collaborate in developing microscopic explorers -- devices in a pill-sized capsule to detect, diagnose, and treat disease inside the human body. Following the links you find interesting NASA devices, such as pill-shaped biotelemetry transmitters and a biotelemeter 'Trisponder' to read the data."
My father in law died of cancer last year. I've had friends die of cancer. I don't know anyone who has HIV. Yeah, great budgetting. The previous poster in this thread is right. It's disgusting that AIDS gets more funding than cancer. About the only way you can get HIV without having yourself to blame is through a blood transfusion. The rest, well you play the lottery and take your chances. Yet cancer can strike anyone.
This kinda crap makes me VERY angry.:(
I wouldn't want to see this technology in use if someone wrote a "virus"...
Who owns the NASA technology, anyhow? I know, we always hear about the benefits of "space-age" technology, but... do they license their patents, or does the gov't reap the benefits? And couldn't that money go towards NASA funding? Please?
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Infected blood from an outside source. Same shit different pile.
Actually, that isn't too likely to be the problem; the mother's and baby's blood only mix as the child is being born, and even then it isn't enough to pose too much of a threat (indeed, many AIDS babies are actually born without the virus and later get it from their mother's breastmilk).
I don't know if amnion carries the virus or not; not all fluids do. Saliva, for example, doesn't carry the virus, at least not in large enough quantities to pose any risk whatsoever unless you were to drink a gallon of the stuff (I think I'll pass). Last I checked only four bodily fluids actually carried the virus in significant quantities: blood, mucus, semen, and vaginal secretions. Other fluids don't seem to carry the virus, or carry it in such minute amounts that there's little to no real risk.
There are also reported cases of babies born with HIV whose bodies actually fight and kill the virus, but Doctors aren't quite sure why yet. Read about that years ago.
There was one case, and that one was later found to be just a mistake; the test was a false-negative.
Also, you talk about the only way to get AIDS without having yourself to blame being through a blood transfusion. That's not strictly true. Some AIDS-infected people actually use their disease as a weapon, infecting many people without them even knowing it. One famous example was a Florida dentist who secretly infected 25 people. There are also HIV-infected rapists; surely such a case is one where it's not the victim's fault that they were infected. And while I know of no cases of this next one, there's also the possibility of infecting someone unwillingly with a needle (we're not talking needle-sharing here; we're talking forced injection).
As for blood transfusions, the screening is so good now that it basically takes a freak accident for HIV-infected blood to get into the supply. So under normal circumstances, AIDS is quite preventable. But it isn't always; don't forget that.
This said, I do think it's a shame that AIDS research gets 20 times the money that cancer research gets. Not so much because of the preventability of AIDS as the fact that cancer still kills many more people every year than AIDS does, and it's been killing for a far longer time There's evidence of known cancer cases in ancient Egypt, whereas the first confirmed AIDS cases were in the late 70's/early 80's, and even the oldest hypothetical case is from the 50's. Don't get me wrong; both diseases are terrible things and need research. But someone in Washington needs to get their priorities straight, or at least recognize that cancer is still a massive threat.
But I doubt that'll happen anytime soon. One last tidbit to leave you with. For a long time, the CIA had a certain bit of spy technology with an interesting side-effect: it could be used to detect breast cancer far earlier than any technology of the time could. But before they released it to the public (which was only recent; sometime in the last five years), they had to be convinced that women's health was "an issue of national security." Guess it goes to show you where Washington's priorities lie.
Well, in general it sounds neat-o, but on second though - how can you take a 'pill' of nanites and, 1st, have them survive the digestive system - it can get really acidic in there, and they'd have to pass thru the stomach or intestinal wall and - geez, I find it a little difficult to beleive that anyhing is able to do both THAT and do anything useful from a micromechanical perspective - like a sensor/transmitter nanite. I question the feasibility of this idea in terms of the bodily particulate-mobility and functionality, ie., a complex monitor/sensor is feasible as an fixed implant, but I find it hard to beleive one could just 'drift around' in the body - I guess there's a fine line between new highly complex molecular 'drugs' and 'micromechanical nanites'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Ok, so it's definitely smaller. Could also be faster with sufficient amounts of dietary fiber.
Don't know if it's cheaper -- but it better be, considering each mission ends with the probe going down the swirly black hole...
As long as none of the widespread and numerous strains of AIDS becomes airborn. If you don't believe this is a real possibility, you don't know enough AIDS researchers.
Cancer strikes smokers, radiation victims, and otherwise randomly. No one with knowledge of the field feels that cancer is likely to become airborn.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
. when is the last time either of these two made an impact on anything.
Well most of NASA's spacecraft have made pretty big impacts on Mars lately...
Rim shot
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Imagine if these things were networked. I wonder how much a sysadmin of this kind of network would get paid. Maybe they could even have a connection to the Internet. Your doctor could monitor your vital signs and then send back a message saying release this hormone or send this electrical pulse.
Problems might arise though. What if some scrpit kiddie pinged you to death. If you think about it these little things would whae to have wireless connections to the net which would be very slow. It'd be interesting to see what kind of attacks would be made on these devices to cause problems. Maybe a DHR(Distributed Hormone Release) that causes you to suddenly start getting really horny. But you could also use a DHR to make someone grow more.
I'd set up my old 486 as a firewall to prevent "malicious hackers" from breaking into me and causing some kind of meltdown. Maybe have the 486 notify a special Nano device that "pages" my brain with the person's IP and what they are doing.
In the book, (originally a short story) a scientist manages to create an intelligent Lymphocite, which is the white blood cells, the 'Cops' of the Cardiovascular system. They end up in his own blood stream, and convert his body to a super healthy state, including restructuring his bones for more optimal movement and to prevent damage. Anyway, some more stuff happens, I won't ruin it. It's really good.
I had read the short story years ago, but the book picks up where the short story just got interesting. Highly recommend it.
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Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
First it was people thinking Jesus was talking to them.
Then along came science fiction, and the same people now were worried about little green men and their ray guns, so they built themselves tinfoil hats and even tinfoil bodysuits.
Now here comes nanotech. Who knows how much more sophisticated these wackos are going to get? Let's all repeat after me: "Get them away from me!"
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
IIRC, the Commodore 64 version shrieked "Welcome to PLASMAAAANIA!" when you loaded it up.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
A few years ago, a sports physiologist was doing a study using a temperature pill that NASA developed that measured core body temperature. He was comparing the pills results to the standard
methods which required me to put a thermistor on a wire in two places, one of which was up my nose and down my throat. The other we won't mention. TMI!! I had to wear an antenna array harness that picked up the signals from this pill. Pretty cool being a part of the developement of this stuff. Anyway, it was I guess a precursor to these devices plus I got paid, had my body fat measured, got to watch a couple of Arnold movies and get some exercise!
I find HIV scarier than cancer because cancer is not contagious. There is NO WAY cancer could concievably wipe out the human race. There are regions of the Earth where upwards of 50% of the population is infected with HIV. I suspect that it its infection rate is increasing much faster than cancer rates are.
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Pretend dancing stinks!
Who will get the Raquel Welch part? :-)
...and a biotelemeter "Trisponder" to read the data...
I suppose you need a Tricorder to record the data from the Trisponder.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
there used to be this game for the Apple IIe or IIgs where the story line was along the lines of a doctor being shrunk with some gadget and given this little nano-type-ship to pilot, and then being injected into various parts of the human body.
the missions where to clean up a certain health problem or fix certain problems, battle germs and bacteria and such, navigate the heart, etc... was really lame, but every time I hear about nanotech and healthcare, that game always pops into my head. Damn wasted braincells... atleast I can't remember the name of the game.
I've always wanted nanites to be available to normal people. It'd be a whole hell of a lot easier to have somewhat intelligent nanites inside your bloodstream and to have dumbassed chemicals just doing their thing. It'd be pretty damn cool, too. Now, all they need to do is figure out how to get nanites to scrape tar off lungs. Now that would be a great invention.....cough....hack.
Eruantalon
Eruantalon
The Annals of Middle-earth
dumbassed chemicals just doing their thing.
What a great description of psychopharmacology! Can I use it when I teach undergrads?
For all the chemicals it pumps out, the body is surprisingly parsimonious sometimes. You can take Prozac(TM) or ecstasy to raise your mood, and end up with high blood pressure, confusion, tremor, possibly death (admittedly more likely if you take both at once). Serotonin syndrome occurs because lots of receptors throughout the brain and body have the same chemical as a signal to do different things. But if we had a substance that could stimulate receptors with the serotonin-seeking shape and tell the difference between a mood-affecting receptor and a blood-pressure raising receptor, we could get the benefits without the side effects.
This is only crudely possible with dumb chemicals. But nanomachines could communicate with a transmitter at a known location on the subject's body, using it to position themselves and either stimulate receptors or release chemicals at a single, tightly controlled locus. Such micromanagement is already used in neuroscience experiments, but at this time they require inserting a catheter directly into the desired part of the brain (yeah, we can treat your depression if you don't feel like getting out of bed anytime soon...). If the drug could place itself...
- laborit
do you know more now, or not?
The bad do bad because the bad is rewarded. The good do good because the good is rewarded.
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That's quite a disgrace, seeing that AIDS is so much more preventable.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
Not quickly, of course...unless the hapless victim(s) ingested scores at once without noticing a grainy consistancy to their food.
Maybe these killer nanites could be designed to block arteries with cholesterol, or dissolve platelets to prevent the stop of bleeding on the battlefield, or change the chemical structure of certain food items to slowly poison a victim. How about severing optic nerves to cause blindness, or causing spinal cord injuries to cause paralysis?
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Are we forgetting that this is the agency who recently lost one probe because they confused metric and imperial measurements, and lost another due to rushing and cutting corners.
I'm not a NASA basher, but do we really want these folks putting things inside our bodies?
bun-fhuinneog agam!
These numbers come from http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/budget/00conference.stm - Carlo
- living sig-free and proud
Ok, who's going to tell them they are looking down the wrong end of the telescope?
- Andy R.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
...it's called Mentos! Secretly developed by German Scientists in dubya dubya 2, the innocent-looking "candy-mints" are actually packed with mind-controlling microscopic robots. Upon ingestion, the robots travel straight to the brain and force the unwitting victim to behave like a dippy European, smiling vacantly and showing everyone their pack of Mentos (subliminal advertising). The scientists called their diabolical invention "Mentos" as a contraction of the words Mental and Nano. The Freshmaker indeed!!!
I would keep typing, but my liver just crashed. Darn wince!
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Ok, lets say you're sick. You swallow a pill to combat whatever is making you ill.
However that one pill isn't powerfull enough to fight off the illness by itself. You have to swallow its four friends, and then they all combine inside your body to form a super robot to fight together.
Sheesh this is starting to sound like Voltron. I hope they don't have some mega-sword which they start swinging wildly around inside of you.
Let's hope the virii don't start teaming up like this. Soon eveyone will have things popping out of them, al a Alien.
Ok, this post sounded like a good idea when I started
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