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Nano Body Building

Posted by michael on from the kidneys-on-tap dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "In this article from Backbone Magazine, Douglas Mulhall, author of 'Our Molecular Future' tells us about the future of nanomedicine. He thinks that medical diagnosis will be the first successful steps, involving nanorobots which will raise alerts when they detect pre-cancerous cells. And twenty years from now, researchers envision that nanomedicine will be a trillion dollar industry. Around 2025, you'll pay $1,000 a year for a nanopill that will extend your life by suppressing heart attacks, diabetes and other diseases. Other scientists say that nanotechnology will be used to build synthetic bone and tissue, an opinion shared by Scientific American, which warns that growing replacement organs is still at least another 10 to 20 years in front of us. More details and references are available in this overview focused on how nanomedicine is going to totally take over healthcare in the 21st century. [Additional note: Slashdot described Mulhall's Law of Disassembly last February.]"

10 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. yes but will it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    .. enlarge my penis?

    1. Re:yes but will it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      no, but it can make your hand smaller.

  2. Gotta love the 21th Century by Graftweed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great, another thing to make us even more lazy and careless.

    Exercise and good diets? Nah mate, just pop in one of those new pills and you're sorted.

    1. Re:Gotta love the 21th Century by InternationalCow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, there's no formal proof that watching what you eat will *extend* your life span. Not paying any attention to it MAY shorten it however. Same goes for exercise. No, this pill or whatever form it takes is definitely the way to go. What I do foresee, however, is Westerners becoming some kind of Struldbrug club (see Larry Niven for what the hell that is) with worn out peripheral nervous systems. And your central nervous system, with its pattern of connections being your personality, will not be that easy to maintain. You could end up more demented than Ronald Reagan but still looking like J Lo (or whatever you prefer).

      --
      ----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
  3. Social Problems? by ajiva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Aren't people forgetting the social problems? Its like what the mathmatician said in Jurrasic Park: "They were so busy trying to see if they could, they didn't stop and think if they should" (or something to that effect). So if we have a generation (or two) of people living longer, what happens to Social Security? Or housing? Or land prices? Or the environment? Or heck lots and lots of other very limited resources! Would I take one of these pills if it was offered to me for $1k? Damn straight I would, but there are so many issues that I shudder at the effects this will have ~100 years down the road.

    1. Re:Social Problems? by TykeClone · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You didn't actually think that you'd get to retire by 70, now did you?

      --
      A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
    2. Re:Social Problems? by augmenter · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When will you people learn? Natural selection doesn't have a goal, there is no road it follows. So, you just can't screw it up or change its direction: it doesn't have one.

      --
      There is no good and bad. There is only cause and effect.
  4. it's coming by axonal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Borg Technology
    Coming to a stardeck near you.

  5. life in the future by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Right now I am eating pizza. I don't exercise enough and I am too fat, and at this rate I will die of heart disease by about age 38. I'm also drinking coke.

    So if in the future I could eat anything I wanted, never exercise, and still have perfect nutrition and physique... what will become of the world?

    A bunch of really hot, lazy, horny, well fed people having a good time? Sounds like heaven...

    --
    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
  6. you love the guessing game by sjwaste · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Don't we all? When a technology barely gets underway, everyone pours out their guesses as to how far it will be in 20 years. Remember Conan doing those "in the year 2000" sketches? I swear back in the 50's people thought we'd have flying cars by now!

    Like any technology, the research dollars will probably go towards those projects with the highest expected returns. I might be a cynic, but rather than curing a disease, I'll bet we'll find a new flood of cosmetic upgrades.