Word: processing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nanobots are the workhorses of the nano-manufacturing world. They are, as the name implies, nanometer-scale robots that use tiny arms to pick up and move atoms and tiny electronic brains to direct the process. There are two basic types of nanobots: general assemblers and a special class of assemblers known as self-replicators...
...tech. Take the Panama Canal, an unparalleled feat of human vision, perseverance and engineering 85 years ago. Standing at the mouth of the canal, in the northern port city of Colon, peering out at the cargo ships, you get an overwhelming sense that you're witnessing an archaic process. Heavy ships traversing the surface of the globe, loaded down with computer parts, petroleum products and Pokemon cards, pause in mid-voyage to pass slowly through the strategically placed Isthmus of Panama before continuing their journey to another part of the world. Someday nanotechnology may make manufacturing products from raw materials...
...planet after the insects, Erwin says, but we have triggered a global species extinction that rivals those caused by ice ages, floods and killer asteroids--with a difference. "Those extinctions were more or less local, zonal or regional," says Erwin. "The present trend, the so-called sixth massive extinction process, is worldwide and atmospheric, totally pervasive...
...doing at creating living, wanting robots? We are making progress, both from the bottom up and from the top down. At one end, researchers are taking apart the simplest living bacteria--mycoplasmas--whose genome can be stored in less than a quarter of a megabyte, to better understand the process of life at the molecular level. Meanwhile, computer programs that reproduce and evolve are starting to exhibit behaviors we expect from simple living creatures, such as interaction with complex environments and sexual reproduction. Artificial life forms that "live" inside computers have evolved to the point where they can chase prey...
...Gone is the hard-living, hard-loving vigilante avenger banging on Hollywood's door with the butt of a .45 and challenging its whitewashing of American reality. In his stead we have his focus-group tested nephew, designed to appeal to a much wider audience but stripped, in the process, of his ability to thrill...