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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff Works dot com. Hi there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pollett. I'm

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Speaker 1: an editor here at how Stuff Works, and with me

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Speaker 1: as usual is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, So

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Speaker 1: I got a little topic I want to talk about today,

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Speaker 1: very little, tiny. In fact, you might call it nano. Yes,

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Speaker 1: in fact, we would, because that's the topic technology. Everybody.

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Speaker 1: Everybody's doing nano. Yeah, everyone is, and depending on who

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Speaker 1: you talked to, it's either gonna destroy the world or

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Speaker 1: rescue it. Yeah. So, um, what's the big deal? So

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Speaker 1: to speak? The big deal is that it's a very

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Speaker 1: very little deal. In fact, one billionth of a deal,

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Speaker 1: or a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. And uh,

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Speaker 1: to give you an idea of how tiny this is,

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Speaker 1: the average human hair is one hundred micrometers in diameter. Now,

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Speaker 1: a micrometer is a thousand nanometers, so that means that

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Speaker 1: the average human hair is one hundred thousand nanometers in diameter.

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Speaker 1: I should point out that that's average. I've seen a

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Speaker 1: number of numbers. Yeah, it is usually between sixty and one.

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Speaker 1: That's normally that's the average I normally see, but one hundred,

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Speaker 1: it's fair enough to say. So, yeah, some people have

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Speaker 1: very fine hair. But we're kind of splitting hairs now,

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Speaker 1: aren't we. You've walked right into that one. So we're

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Speaker 1: talking about things on this tiny, tiny scale. Now, we're

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Speaker 1: not talking about the atomic scale, because that's actually smaller

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Speaker 1: than the nano scale. Yeah, because an atom is about

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Speaker 1: an atom. When you take the entire atom into account,

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Speaker 1: the average atom is about point one nanometers in diameter.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty teeny. So it's one tenth of a of

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Speaker 1: a nanometer. That's the atomic scale. We're getting pretty close

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Speaker 1: to the atomic scale. Yeah. Yeah, Now if you want

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Speaker 1: to talk about the nucleus of an atom, do you

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Speaker 1: want to how big that is? I mean, yes, how many?

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Speaker 1: Of course you want to know how big it is?

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Speaker 1: It Tollett Cheese, I thought I had you. It is

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Speaker 1: point zero zero zero zero one nanometers wide. That's just

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Speaker 1: the nucleus. So when you when you strip away the

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Speaker 1: electron shell, it's tiny indeed, But anyway, nanoscale, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about things on this really tiny scale. Building machines that

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Speaker 1: are on this scale. Usually people say between one and

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Speaker 1: one d nanometers is kind of within the nanoscale range.

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Speaker 1: Um building not just machines, but but really specific machines

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Speaker 1: that can actually potentially change the world. And um, it's

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Speaker 1: it's pretty phenomenal to think of building anything on that

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Speaker 1: smaller scale. You can't even look at these things with

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Speaker 1: a light microscope because they're so tiny because the the

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Speaker 1: wavelength for visible light on the small scale of it

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Speaker 1: over on the violet spectrum, that's about four hundred nanometers

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Speaker 1: for a wave length. So we're talking about having to

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Speaker 1: use things like scanning telling microscopes to look at the

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Speaker 1: nano scale. Now, these are special microscopes that emit a

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Speaker 1: small charge electric charge, and then it interprets the data,

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Speaker 1: sends it to a computer, and you look at an

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Speaker 1: image on a computer screen. So you're not even really

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Speaker 1: looking at the physical thing. You're looking at a computer

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Speaker 1: image representation of that thing. Right, if if nanotechnology is

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Speaker 1: that small, how do you make it? Because you know,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who talk about things

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Speaker 1: on the nano scale, like, uh, you know, computer processor

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Speaker 1: chips using nanotechnology, Uh, nano robots, which I'm told you

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Speaker 1: might know something about a little bit. You know, you

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Speaker 1: know all kinds of things. How are you building these tiny,

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Speaker 1: tiny things if you can't even really see them, if

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Speaker 1: you're depending on a machine to do it for you

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Speaker 1: to be able to look at them, that's a tricky question.

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Speaker 1: I'll there are two different ways, right. There's the top

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Speaker 1: down approach, which is where you actually drop stuff on

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Speaker 1: it from above, not quite, but you you build each

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Speaker 1: component and you then put everything together. It's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like the classic way you build anything, right, Like

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Speaker 1: you would use a top down approach to build say

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Speaker 1: a car. You know, you build the frame and then

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Speaker 1: you attach various things to the frame. I'm talking like

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Speaker 1: I know anything about cars. Um. So it's a different

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Speaker 1: podcasts and Scott is way better at it than I am.

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Speaker 1: So the other way is the bottom up approach. This

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Speaker 1: is interesting. This is where you're actually building things kind

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Speaker 1: of um like you're growing them almost like you're growing machines. Um.

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Speaker 1: And you're doing it adam by adam, molecule by molecule,

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Speaker 1: and uh, I'm not really sure which way it's gonna go.

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Speaker 1: This is an early early silent science, even though it's

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Speaker 1: been around for a couple of decades. We're still, you know,

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Speaker 1: just barely in the beginning of it. So we'll see

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Speaker 1: which method ends up being the the prevalent one. Um,

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Speaker 1: but there are people working on it on either end,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, and to give you an idea of

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Speaker 1: how possible this is. In so we're talking about almost

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Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Uh, there was an IBM scientist named

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Speaker 1: Don Eidler who led a team who demonstrated that they

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Speaker 1: can manipulate individual atoms and they used a scanning tunneling

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Speaker 1: microscope to move atoms to spell I B M, I

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Speaker 1: AM so not shock. Yeah. So you can actually there

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Speaker 1: are pictures of this on the internet if you google

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Speaker 1: you know IBM scanning tunneling microscope. Uh, you can find

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Speaker 1: pictures of this where you see the image where each

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Speaker 1: dot represents a separate atom. So they actually use the

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Speaker 1: atoms to spell the word. Well. And in two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: again IBM scientists are kind of leading the research in this. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They were in Zurich and they they show that they

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Speaker 1: were able to change the charge state of individual atoms

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Speaker 1: by adding or removing electrons from an individual atom. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So again they used a scanning telling microscope, and they

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Speaker 1: had a charged point on the tip of that microscope

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Speaker 1: which comes to such an incredibly fine point that it

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Speaker 1: can do these things that can remove an electron from

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Speaker 1: one atom and and put it onto another. So we

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Speaker 1: have the technology to manipulate individual atoms. Now we have

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Speaker 1: to get to the point where we can build molecular

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Speaker 1: structures that work as tiny machines, all right, and there

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Speaker 1: are a couple different ways we can look into that.

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Speaker 1: One of the really popular things that people have been

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Speaker 1: talking about recently are carbon nanotubes. Have you heard of these? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's the stuff that's supposed to, you know, do everything

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Speaker 1: everything you've ever heard of. Essentially, carbon danotubes can apparently

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Speaker 1: do well. There there's such a versatile structure, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: you know, very resilient yep. Yeah. It actually all depends

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Speaker 1: on how you how you roll the yeah, how you

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Speaker 1: roll the tube. So carbon nanotubes, the way you create

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Speaker 1: a carbon nanotube in general them I'm way oversimplifying here,

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Speaker 1: but you take a sheet of carbon atoms, all right,

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Speaker 1: they form molecular structure where it looks very like it

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Speaker 1: looks like a series of hexagons, and what you then

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Speaker 1: do is you roll this into a tube. You roll

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Speaker 1: the sheet into a tube, and depending on the angle

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Speaker 1: you use when you roll it into a tube, that

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Speaker 1: dictates the the the properties the carbon nanotube will have.

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Speaker 1: So you know that. Of course graphite is composed of carbon,

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Speaker 1: as are diamonds, but these two materials are have very

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Speaker 1: different properties. Graphites very soft, it's opaque, uh, diamonds not

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Speaker 1: so soft, usually pretty clear. But the reason why they're

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Speaker 1: different is because of the way these molecules are arranged.

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Speaker 1: The same thing with carbon nanotubes. So if you arrange

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Speaker 1: them as specific way by rolling the sheet in a

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Speaker 1: specific direction, you can create a material that's hundreds of

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Speaker 1: times stronger than steel and six times is light. Well

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Speaker 1: what could what could possibly be a problem with Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: the problem, as you pointed out, is it's very expensive.

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Speaker 1: It's there's no easy way to do it. It's no easy,

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Speaker 1: efficient way right now that we can do it on

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Speaker 1: a mass scale. So we can be done. It's just

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Speaker 1: gonna be done in very small amounts, like on the

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Speaker 1: nano scale amounts, and it's being done in laboratories and

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Speaker 1: it's gonna take several years for that to move from

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Speaker 1: the laboratory to the production room. And um, when it does,

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Speaker 1: then we're gonna start seeing lots and lots of stuff

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Speaker 1: with carbon nanotubes and it we we see some already.

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Speaker 1: There's some products that use carbon nanotube technology already, but

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Speaker 1: it's not on the scale that the you know, the

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Speaker 1: future of nanotechnology kind of promises us. But I've seen

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Speaker 1: things like everything from a Spider Man type suit made

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Speaker 1: out of carbon nanotubes because if you roll them a

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Speaker 1: certain way, they work very like a Gecks skin. You

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Speaker 1: could climb walls and things with this stuff, which pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've got one on back order. So anyway, Um, so

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Speaker 1: that's kind of giving you the lowdown on on where

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Speaker 1: we are now and and you can find technology that

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Speaker 1: does incorporate things on the nano scale. In fact, you're

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Speaker 1: probably using one right now to listen to us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because if you're using any sort of device that has

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Speaker 1: a microchip, chances are you've got a transistors on that

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Speaker 1: microchip that are on somewhere in the nanoscale. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you have a recent computer, then it's definite, you know,

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Speaker 1: as long as it's not I guess a netbook. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you have one that has a powerful microprocessor. You're

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Speaker 1: talking about transistors that are only a few dozen nanometers wide.

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Speaker 1: So for example, Intel's uh I CORPS seven I believe,

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Speaker 1: are what forty wide? I think, yes, except it's Core

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Speaker 1: I seven. Just remember, yeah, I show have said nehalem.

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Speaker 1: I wrote about it as the nehalem. But yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: those are um, those are like like forty five nanometers wide.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking about stuff that's already out on

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Speaker 1: the market that's at this scale. I was looking at

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Speaker 1: applications of nanotechnology and I found an article on on

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Speaker 1: c net that in which they were talking about using

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Speaker 1: your voice to charge your cell phone. And uh, apparently

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Speaker 1: in order to do this they use they would they

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Speaker 1: would use they should say, would they would use barry

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Speaker 1: Um Tighten eight crystals, which are twenty three nanometers wide,

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Speaker 1: And to do that, it actually creates piezo electricity. It

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Speaker 1: transfers transfers, it transfers of physical energy into electrical energy. Yes, exactly, Karma. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you know, that's that's pretty neat to imagine that.

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Speaker 1: You know, these crystals that are are you know, in

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Speaker 1: the teens are not teens, but in the dual digit

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Speaker 1: nanometers size. You know that's wow, so um so piazzo

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Speaker 1: electric that that essentially means that you're converting kinetic energy

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Speaker 1: into electricity or vice versa. And then oh no, I

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Speaker 1: was just gonna say, this is the same sort of

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Speaker 1: stuff you you've have in things like microphones and speakers,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing where it's converting uh, one form

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Speaker 1: of energy into another. And crystal there's certain crystals that

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Speaker 1: can do this, like quartz that that have this property

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Speaker 1: innately di lithium, tillium anyway. Um. And then they're the

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Speaker 1: nano robots, which are great for you know everything. Read

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Speaker 1: this article written by you know this Jonathan Strickling guy

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Speaker 1: and vaguely remember writing that it's been it's been more

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Speaker 1: than a year now. Yeah, but yeah, so nano robots

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Speaker 1: um all kinds of metal cool applications for those. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: here's the here's the interesting thing about nano robots. UM,

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Speaker 1: they don't exist. Well, yeah, we're pretty much in the

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Speaker 1: micro stage right now to be to be really fair,

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Speaker 1: but assuming that we ever get down to the nano

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Speaker 1: size and are able to build nano sized robots, the

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Speaker 1: applications are pretty amazing from the medical standpoint. Um. For example,

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Speaker 1: let's say that you have a disease that's affecting a

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Speaker 1: very specific part of your body. And let's say the

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Speaker 1: normal way to treat this disease would be that you

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Speaker 1: would have you would take you know, medication. Well I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking medication really, but we can get the surgery to

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Speaker 1: in a minute. Um, So let's say that it would

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Speaker 1: normally be that you would either get a shot or

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Speaker 1: take some medicine orally or whatever. You would have to

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Speaker 1: wait for that medicine to make its way through your system,

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Speaker 1: uh and to eventually affect the infected area. Right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: so the medicine is already getting diluted through bloodstream, it's

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Speaker 1: taking time for it to reach the infected area, takes

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Speaker 1: time for it to to uh take effect at the area,

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Speaker 1: and so the whole recovery rate is slower than it

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Speaker 1: would ideally be. Now with a nano robot, theoretically you

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Speaker 1: could direct it, or if you could find a way

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Speaker 1: of making it autonomous, it can direct itself to the

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Speaker 1: infected area and deliver a much smaller payload of medication

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Speaker 1: directly to the infected area. So, for one thing, you're

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Speaker 1: not gonna have the side effects that you might have

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Speaker 1: experienced through a larger dose of medication because the dose

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Speaker 1: is much much smaller. For another, the application is immediate

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Speaker 1: to the infected area, so you're talking about it being

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Speaker 1: much more efficient and having a smaller impact on the

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Speaker 1: patient's overall health. So that's that's an ideal situation now

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Speaker 1: for surgery. As you were pointing out, that's also a

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Speaker 1: possibility you could create nano robots that would have things

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Speaker 1: like laser cutters that would essentially act like a little scalpel,

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Speaker 1: but they would be the incredibly precise, far more precise

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Speaker 1: than any human would be with a scalpel, because they're

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Speaker 1: on the nano scale. You're talking about something so small

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Speaker 1: that it's you know, blood cells are dwarfing it. So

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Speaker 1: but it could be an incredibly precise tool. And granted,

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Speaker 1: do you think, well, with a device that's small, how

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Speaker 1: could it really be useful? A lot of these future

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Speaker 1: projections suggests that you would not have just one of

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Speaker 1: these little nano robots working. They would there would be thousands,

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Speaker 1: perhaps millions of them working together at the same time,

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Speaker 1: and uh, then you don't have to find a way

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Speaker 1: of getting them out, or potentially you would have nano

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Speaker 1: robots in you all the time, and they could even

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Speaker 1: act as a preventive measure and keep you healthy and

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Speaker 1: head off any problems before they could really start even

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Speaker 1: uh bringing up symptoms. Yeah, you were saying in the

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Speaker 1: article that they could be used to do things like

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Speaker 1: breakup blood clots or you know, kidney stones. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: And they say breaking up is hard to do. You

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Speaker 1: know someone who has suffered from kidney stones. I gotta

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Speaker 1: tell you, I would love to have had some robots. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if nothing else, then just to start have someone specific

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Speaker 1: I could scream at UM instead of just the the

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Speaker 1: the directionless screaming that I did while I actually had

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Speaker 1: them UM. But yeah, yeah, there are lots of different

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Speaker 1: cool applications. Now, there's some big problems that we have

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Speaker 1: to overcome. First, we have to be able to create

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Speaker 1: UM power systems on that scale something to power these robots.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about batteries and capacitors that are have

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Speaker 1: to be incredibly tiny UM and that's that's a big challenge. Now,

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Speaker 1: some doctors have engineers have got around that by creating

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Speaker 1: robots that that propelled themselves, or actually they don't really

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Speaker 1: propel themselves. They are propelled externally. UM. There's one that

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Speaker 1: used m r I machine and you would use the

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Speaker 1: magnets in the m R I really to direct the robot,

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Speaker 1: so you could actually you know, you're kind of the

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Speaker 1: robot really was more passive, but you could direct it

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Speaker 1: to specific spot within an artery system. Now I should

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Speaker 1: point out that the scientists who did this did it

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Speaker 1: with a pig. Um. They were not doing human testing,

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Speaker 1: but it worked, went through the pig's arteries, so you know,

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Speaker 1: that's a it's nothing to sneeze at. Actually, I was

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Speaker 1: reading about a completely different application of nanotechnology. There was

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Speaker 1: sort of fascinating. UM. Jennifer Lowell was blogging about it

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Speaker 1: for for Seen It and she was talking about the

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Speaker 1: possibility that you could use nanotech to alter food on

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Speaker 1: the microscopic scale. UM. She actually was quoting Steve Bogan

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Speaker 1: and the Guardian. UM. They were talking about essentially how

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Speaker 1: you could if you had a food that to which

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Speaker 1: you were allergic, Uh, you could maybe make alterations to

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Speaker 1: it so that it would pass from your body without

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Speaker 1: being a problem. Trick is you know you could uh

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Speaker 1: you could have problems with people who don't particularly genetically

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Speaker 1: modified food, you know, so a lot of people that

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Speaker 1: are kind of creeped out by the frank and food. Um,

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Speaker 1: and you're talking about messing with things down again on

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Speaker 1: a very very tiny level. Uh So that's pretty that's

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Speaker 1: pretty significant. Um. But Bogan also mentioned the possibility that

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Speaker 1: packaging could be made um to where the nanotechnology inside

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Speaker 1: the food packaging could sniff out when you know, the

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Speaker 1: food started to give off gassing as it was decomposing,

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Speaker 1: it would change color to go, oh, well, you know

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Speaker 1: this thing, it's started to turn brown. We need to

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Speaker 1: toss it out without even you know, sniffing it or

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Speaker 1: you know, sticking your finger on it and going, I know,

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Speaker 1: it feels kind of weird. Yeah, that would have prevented

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Speaker 1: many many memorable nights that I've had in my past. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure anyway, So uh and and to talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about building these robots, one of the

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Speaker 1: one of the things that scientists are working on is

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Speaker 1: to try and create specific kinds of nano robots called assemblers. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: assemblers do what you would think they do. They assemble

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Speaker 1: other nano machines. So they could assemble other assemblers, so

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Speaker 1: then you have a self replicating nano robot. Do you

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Speaker 1: see where there might be a problem with this? I

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Speaker 1: feel its edging gradually towards the singularity. Right, So we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the potential for nano robots to replicate themselves

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Speaker 1: at such an incredible rate. And remember as soon as

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Speaker 1: one gets replicated, it can start replicating, and then the

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Speaker 1: ones that replicates can start replicating. So it's exponential growth. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a scenario called gray Goo. Gray Goo is this

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Speaker 1: this doomsday scenario where nano robots in order to build

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Speaker 1: more nano robots, they have to create it out of something.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're not building it out of nothing. So

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Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're they're in this scenario anyway,

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Speaker 1: it's taking carbon out of the environment and then building

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Speaker 1: robots with them that were of carbon. Right, Well, everything

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff is made out of carbon on

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Speaker 1: on our planet, turns out, So the idea here would

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Speaker 1: be that the robots would start to consume all the

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Speaker 1: carbon in an effort to build more robots. And of course,

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Speaker 1: since it's exponential, it gets faster and faster every passing second.

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Speaker 1: So this Tudnsday scenario has the entire world just turning

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Speaker 1: into this writhing mass of gray goo as nano robots

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Speaker 1: take over everything. I'm totally singing The Sorcerer's Apprentice in

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Speaker 1: my head. Sleep well tonight. Yeah, I'm glad that we

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Speaker 1: were able to take such a rosy idea and go

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Speaker 1: there with it. Well, I mean, it's it's obviously a

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Speaker 1: worst case scenario, but there are a lot of First

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Speaker 1: of all, we're decades away from getting there. Second of all,

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Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that that's what would happen if we

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Speaker 1: even were able to create the nanotech simblars. So I

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00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: think we don't have to worry just yet. When the

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Speaker 1: singularity comes, then we'll start worrying. All right, So we

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00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:11,880
Speaker 1: got about twenty years. You got anything to add to nanotechnology? No,

339
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,240
Speaker 1: just get your living in while it's good? Okay, well

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00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:18,920
Speaker 1: you know what do you know what's also good? Yeah?

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00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 1: This is not good. It's listener mail. Seriously, where's the

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00:20:25,560 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 1: volume that element? So anyway, Rory writes in, Hi, Rory,

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Speaker 1: Rory writes in and says, have either of you guys

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00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 1: ever used Linux or bs D? Os ten does not

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Speaker 1: count as BSD in this case, then does a little

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00:20:39,520 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: uh smiley emoticon that has its tongue sticking out at you. Also,

347
00:20:44,119 --> 00:20:47,359
Speaker 1: do either of you program, even on just a hobby level.

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Speaker 1: Excuse the questions. I'm just curious that we fit exercise

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Speaker 1: room sounds awesome. Thank you, It is awesome. So let's

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Speaker 1: let's tackle these questions. Have you ever used Linux or

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Speaker 1: BSD and remember O S ten doesn't count. Yes, actually have, UM,

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Speaker 1: although admittedly on sort of a as you know, you

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00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:09,639
Speaker 1: might put it hobby scale. UM, I've dabbled with trying

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Speaker 1: to install UM. I'm build of a bunch of on

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00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,120
Speaker 1: my old beat up PC at home and uh, probably

356
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Speaker 1: should not have because it did not like it very much.

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Speaker 1: Although I have a spare hard drive and um I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking about trying it again, so maybe I can report

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00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:28,080
Speaker 1: back on that later. But UM, I've I've used a

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Speaker 1: boot disc and uh, you know, just dabbled with it

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00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:33,399
Speaker 1: that way, and I really like it. I've used it

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Speaker 1: on friends machines. I do not have a Linux machine

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Speaker 1: other than my HTCG one which runs on Android, which

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00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:42,480
Speaker 1: has a Linux kernel that it's very core. Well, I

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00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:46,840
Speaker 1: do have a t VO, so technically yes, we have

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Speaker 1: used it, though not as a chief operating system um uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's not like we have a bias against Linux

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Speaker 1: at all, or BSD for that matter. It's really part

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00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:01,200
Speaker 1: of it's just the fact that all of our computers here,

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00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: pretty much most of our computers here, I should say,

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00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 1: run on Windows, so it's just easier to stay on

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Speaker 1: the same operating system. And in case you want to

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00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,600
Speaker 1: work on anything, that's true. Now, I do have an

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00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 1: Intel powered Mac at home, and you know, I could

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00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:17,679
Speaker 1: partition the hard drive and install Linux on it, but

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00:22:17,960 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: you know, and I really haven't. I'd really rather try

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Speaker 1: it on something else first, especially since the problem I

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00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 1: did have on it was partitioning the hard drive. Yeah,

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00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: let's let me get a little bit more comfortable with

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00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 1: that before I started. Sounds good. And uh so the

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00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: question do you program? Do you program? Um? Not anymore? Yeah,

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00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:39,679
Speaker 1: I used to program using a Mega Basic. Yeah, I

383
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 1: used to program. So, yeah, we programmed back when, uh

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00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: back when personal computers were pretty new. We were not

385
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 1: now granted we were not. Uh we're not going to

386
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,479
Speaker 1: give you any of the harder stories of programming for

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00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: a computer using punch cards. That's a little before our time. Um,

388
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: although I, uh my older brother went to a punch

389
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:05,840
Speaker 1: card class. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, And you know, I realized

390
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:09,520
Speaker 1: that h GML is not technically programming, but you know

391
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: it is a little coding. Yeah. I used to do

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00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: it's us, you know, just to mess with the back end,

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00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:20,239
Speaker 1: not even you know, no wisywig editors end. Okay, I

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00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 1: think I'm done now. Okay, So anyway, yeah, I've done

395
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 1: some h MIL coding as well. Back when the web

396
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: was was pretty much new, I did. I built websites.

397
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Speaker 1: And that was back in the day when you would

398
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Speaker 1: you would code in HTML, save it, open up a browser.

399
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Speaker 1: Look at what you did. Say, Oh my god, that

400
00:23:36,000 --> 00:23:40,200
Speaker 1: looks terrible. Close the browser, open up the editor, makes

401
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: some changes. Close it, you know, save it, close it,

402
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: you know, rents and repeat. It's so much easier now.

403
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 1: The blink tag yeah, and the marquee tag and they

404
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: and the the looping uh midi file in the background. Anyway,

405
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Speaker 1: So well, thank you very much, Rory. I hope we

406
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,720
Speaker 1: answer your question. Roy's laughing at us right now, and well,

407
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:09,600
Speaker 1: right well we should. If any of you have any questions, comments, suggestions, corrections,

408
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,920
Speaker 1: please right in to tech stuff at how stuff works

409
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: dot com. And remember we have a brand new blog

410
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: up l at blogs dot How Stuff Works dot Com.

411
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,920
Speaker 1: It's not just tech stuff either. You can find stuff

412
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: about from history, stuff you should know, auto science. It's

413
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 1: all there and check it out. You know, there's a

414
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,479
Speaker 1: good way to UH to get another kind of UH

415
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:36,240
Speaker 1: insight into the way our minds work, as scary as

416
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: that is. And we'll talk to you again really soon

417
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

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