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DNA Machine Marks Big Jump for Nanotechnology
Scientists at New York University announced the creation of a tiny moving 'elbow' created out of DNA.
Start Date: 1/25/99
It sounds like the most extreme kind of science fiction. Machines as small as single living cells, or smaller, work together in alien environments or even inside human bodies, teaming in their millions to create exotic structures, mend tissues, even terraform whole ecosystems. This is the weird world of nanotechnology. It is based on the notion that moving parts can be subminiatured and specialized to the same degree as seen in electronic circuits since vacuum tubes were replaced by semiconductors. Predictably, many people are sure this is nonsense. But a new breakthrough by Nadrian Seeman and colleagues at New York University, reported in the January 14, 1999 issue of the journal Nature, indicates that nanotechnology may be coming soon.
Seeman's team built an "elbow" out of DNA. The structure is rigid enough to hold its shape, but can be chemically triggered to bend. It is the first demonstration of a technique that, Seeman hopes, will permit the building of tiny robots equipped with articulating appendages and fingers.
"This is a very beautiful demonstration of construction at that scale of a device that's actually functioning," said Daniel Colbert of Rice University's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. Colbert thinks, however, that creation of useful nanoscale machines is still some decades away.
 Excelsior, Michael Lindemann's new novel (written under the pen name Michael Paul), depicts a wholly plausible near future in which human cloning is both widespread and widely abused; terrorists have access to target-specific biological weapons; recreational space travel is commonplace; and mounting pressures of global climate change, environmental decline, population growth and civil unrest inspire radical new approaches to urban security.
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Study Says Hackers Threaten U.S. Military
A Pentagon study says hi-tech hackers could outpace official efforts to protect vital military information systems.
A Vision of a Coming Age of Prosperity
In 'The Long Boom,' author Peter Schwartz and colleagues argue that economic and social conditions could get steadily better for the majority of Earth's people in the years ahead.
Water Shortages Threaten Food Supplies and Peace
In much of the world, producing adequate supplies of food increasingly depends upon unsustainable levels of irrigation. Methods exist to use available water much more efficiently, but time is running short.
World May Be on Edge of Environmental Revolution
There are growing signs that the world may be nearing an environmental revolution comparable to the political revolution that swept Eastern Europe a decade ago, according to the Worldwatch Institute.
Anniversaries: U.S. Recalls Two Historic Disasters
During the last week of March, 1999, the U.S. looked back on the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster of 20 years ago, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster ten years ago.
Revolt Against Genetically Modified Foods Gains Force
In recent months, a consumer backlash against genetically modified (GM) foods has exploded across much of Europe and now threatens to stop the GM industry in its tracks.
Nuclear Industry Faces Slow Slide to Oblivion
According to the Worldwatch Institute, the nuclear power industry is at its peak of power capacity now and will start declining within two years, toward eventual extinction sometime in the mid-21st century.
The Future According to Gordon-Michael Scallion
Do the startling predictions of this 'Latter-Day Nostradamus' make sense? Some actually do -- but many others don't.
Iraq, Balkans Unrest Raise Danger of Nuke Mistake
A top Russian defense official said on March 2, 1999 that Russia's disputes with the West over Iraq and Yugoslavia could increase the chances that Moscow would retaliate after a false warning of a missile attack.
Biogenetics Treaty Talks Stall in Cartagena
UN-sponsored talks in Cartagena, Colombia, aimed at curbing proliferation of genetically altered foods, fell apart in mid-February, 1999 in the face of resistance from the United States and several other nations.
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