Court

Sunday, April 10, 2005

CU Boulder - 57th annual Conference on World Affairs

Every year CU hosts "The Conference on World Affairs" which is a week long summit with representatives from all over the world discussing a plethora of diverse issues. The conference is structured with each session being hosted by a panel of speakers (usually 4 or 5) who lead a discussion about the topic of interest. After a brief overview of the topic by each panel member, audience members are invited to pose questions to the speakers and provoke conversation. Panels are set to last an hour and a half and usually have to be cut off! The panels are also recorded and tapes & CD's are made available for purchase through the official website at: http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/

This year was the 57th annual event and unfortunately I only had time to visit one forum entitled Nanobots: Who, What, Why, When, Where. Nanobots only featured three guest speakers but each one presented a unique viewpoint from a different industries or field of study. The speakers included Andy Ihnatko, Seth Shostak and Jim Smith. Much of the discussion was focused specifically on how robots could be created on a nano level and what tasks they might perform. How would they be powered? How do we make something so small? How can we control these things! It was all very interesting but most of the discussion was purely speculation because nanobots aren't actually being produced yet. One member of the audience however, shared news about how nanotechnology had been used to design stain proof pants: http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218391840&cat=3_5 but aside from that, a short discussion on military aircraft technology and the US's resistance to the metric system none of the discussion focused on real nanobot objects. A few doomsday scenerios were tossed up during the discussion but a majority of the audience was more excited about the potential good of nanobots than the possibility of world domination as featured in Michael Crichton's novel Prey. We were told that the real possibilities of nanobots comes in their ability to work together and reproduce, like small insects that team up to build something or help pollinate crops. One panel member seemed to think that, just like bugs, nanobots will work in limited numbers and have a limited ability to assimilate on a global level (which has been the big sci-fi scare).

The best idea for nanobots that I have been able to come up with on my own is a process by which these tiny creatures could be used for landscaping purposes to cut grass, or even replace a jetty by transporting small sand grains over time to keep beach erosion down. The steps that need to be made for this sort of technology to become a reality are a means for fueling nanobots and a way for them to reproduce independently (so if you step on one or two, they can replace themselves). It's a bright future but people need to invest in this technology if we want to see it blossom. The panel harped on the dot com bust as being a primary contributor to the current lack of investment in nanotechnology. The general feeling of the speakers was that in the next 50 years nanotechnology and nanobots will take hold and replace some of our older less efficient technology. Until the day comes when we jump from sci-fi to reality you can check out Michael Crichton's book Prey or if you want to learn about why Prey might actually be hurting the image of nanotechnology check out this critiquing article from Nanoparticle News.

posted by Court @ 5:13 PM |

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