Alas, that CNN article had nothing to do with microscopic, free-roaming robots - the nanotech of science fiction.

In real life, nanotech is control of materials at a nanoscale.

A typical example is control of grain (crystal) sizes in metals and ceramics by careful heat treating - no mini-robots involved, just a metallurgical furnace, laser, or other heat source.

Another example are modern electronics manufacturing, which reliably reproduces electronic structures on microchips at a scale of tens of nanometers. That involves careful crystal growth, spraying new layers, and selective etching.

For the foreseeable future, that's all nanotech's going to be. Microscopic robots remain the domain of sci-fi.

I don't think so.

Read "Man & Machine" sometime, in the section about nanotech. They say that nanotech has been part of cyberware systems from the beginning - that without some nanotech systems in them, most cyberware would be too bulky and too Essence-costly to be effective.

And they probably will for quite a while. The probability of anyone creating grey-goo level autonomous nanorobots falls somewhere between unpossible and not fraggin' likely. We can't even make giagagitic room-sized robots with enough processing power to safely perform basic surgery on a human body. Good luck creating a machine smaller that a human cell with that much memory.

Not nanotech, but composites, wood, and stainless steel do alright.

Yes. Austenitic stainless steels (like your typical kitchen sink and Paul Revere cookware) are non-magnetic. IIRC, it's the nickel content messing up the ferromagnetism.

Huh. The Germans must be trying too hard to use conventional carbon steels. If you have a slightly bigger budget, common stainless steels are non-magnetic (that 18%+ chromium content drives up the price - chrome ain't as cheap as iron). Like 304 and 316 stainless. Common stuff.

Joints and welds are overrated as weak spots. If you don't mind the price, you can use thin-wall casting or 3D rapid-prototyping techniques. Welds can be as strong as the surrounding material. It's just a matter of cost. Usually, it's cheaper to make weaker joints and welds.

Okay.

The what, the what and the what now?

So what do you want to know about the field of rapid prototyping, etc? Hilarious how y'all are now talking an area that I do at work.

Sure, using a few various methods of fusing stock material together. Nanofusion will have the advantage of interlacing and wider material selection - not to mention tolerances measured in molecules...

I work for the patent office, I examine the applications for them. In the molding arts, but I specialize in injection molding machines, blow molding machines, control systems, and my fave, all the 3-D machines including stereolithography, 3-D sintering, etc... Lately, I'm doing a bunch of imprint technology cases some of them are going after nanostructures so I'm taking a special interest in that area now. So I get to look at the freaking schematics all day long and dream about how they work. If I'm lucky they'll let us see one in action when an inventor comes to the office for a demonstration (which happened once about 6 years ago...)

Hmm. Thing is, I remember reading a few articles in the past about the prospect of using nanotech robots to clear away artery plaque. I think they ran in Scientific American.

I forgot what the articles said, though.

Maybe they're a ways away on the independent part, but what about a remote-controlled type? Like nanobots that surgeons could operate by RC (or something similar) during the course of an operation?

Still a bit a ways. One research group managed to make a one molecule car that moved by the temperature change, but it was also unguided. To have a nanorobot that can last for its duration, be able to propel through the bloodstream to the desired location, and have the necessary onboard communication/navigation for it to properly operate is going to take a lot more than what we have now.

At the rate MEMS and nanotech has been developing since 1990...you're looking at 50 years, if not longer. There's nigh-insurmountable problems with power sources in addition to the command/control issues, and there are no radical breakthoughs in manipulators - spinning gears is still the height of micro-electromechanical system development (along with a bit of fluid pumping), like it was 15 years ago.

I'm willing to bet genetic engineering will be able to deliver some heart-cleaning method a lot sooner than non-biological nanotech.