"Life is nanotech." So says Stephen Gordon, blogging at The Speculist. He's writing about "Holy Grail of Enzymatics: Making Enzymes that Make Anything You Want," a recent blog post by Al Fin.
Fin says:
Ever since scientists learned they could design new genes--and thus new proteins--in the lab, they have been hoping to gain enough specificity in the design of enzymes to allow the use of artificial enzymes to create new and useful molecules that have never existed in nature. Clearly, that is nano-assembly in an enzymatic form, with potential approaching anything Eric Drexler may have dreamed for his own nanoassemblers.
Elsewhere, he says:
Nanotechnologists too often approach the assembly of their nano-machines on a de novo basis, ignoring the legions of nano-machines that evolved over a billion years ago. Nano-engineers had better begin learning from the biologically evolved nanodynamic structures, or they will be made irrelevant by bio-nano engineers.
CRN does not take a position on whether the earliest forms of advanced nanotechnology -- meaning molecular manufacturing -- will come through thorough control of enzymes, through engineering of DNA, through structured polymers, through vacuum-based mechanochemistry, or some other method.
We do expect, however, that no matter which approach is the first to achieve automated, programmed, exponential manufacturing at the nanoscale, eventually diamondoid nanotech will prove to be the most robust.
Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog
A new study published in December 2005 in Biophysical Journal raises a red flag regarding the safety of buckyballs when dissolved in water. It reports the results of a detailed computer simulation that finds buckyballs bind to the spirals in DNA molecules in an aqueous environment, causing the DNA to deform, potentially interfering with its biological functions and possibly causing long-term negative side effects in people and other living organisms. 
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