Michael Anissimov wrote this great article on Transhumanism. If you're not familiar with the concept, it is that the technology all around us is our next evolutionary step. Today, we think of computers and technologies as things around us, but they'll soon be part of us, and then replace us, much as we replaced cave men. We're building our own grandchildren.

Mr. Anissimov makes the observation that

Politicians and laypeople everywhere are beginning to get the picture - it matters less what you say than what technology you have at your disposal. This is why presidential speeches are peppered with mentions of the importance of alternative energy and the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Good technology improves the lives of millions and bad technology has the potential to murder millions. Social ideas are merely a footnote.

Wristwatch sales are on the decline amongst young people. What's the purpose, when every cell phone and MP3 player tells the time? Even Fossil, the top brand for teens, acknowledged an 18.6% decline in wholesale U.S. sales of its namesake brand.

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Anti-matter is the strongest fuel known. To send humans to Mars would require tons of chemical fuel, where if anti-matter were used, just tens of milligrams of the stuff would be required. That's about 1/100th the weight of an M&M. The three big challenges are producing it, containing it during flight, and controlling the production of dangerous gamma rays during it's usage.

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Last year, chemists were able to build a car from a single-molecule. Now, chemists at Rice University have built the first motorized version of their nanocar.

The nanocar is powered by light. Its motor is a molecular framework that was developed by Ben L. Feringa and was modified so that it would attach in-line with the nanocar's chassis. When light strikes the motor, it rotates in one direction, pushing the car along like a paddlewheel.

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MIT scientists have manipulated genes within viruses, coaxing them to grow and self-assemble "nanowire" structures. These structures can then be used to make very thin lithium-ion batteries.

The batteries that could be built using this technology could be the size of a grain of rice.

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Researchers at the University of Chicago have created a diode from a single molecule. The diode is only a few tens of atoms in size and 1,000 times smaller than a conventional one. Diodes are critical components within computers and other electronic devices.

Nano-Computer Diode from one Molecule

Cheri Robertson recently received surgery that allowed her to see, even though previously she was blind. The procedure, performed at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, is the first to reverse blindness in patients without eyes. A camera on the tip of Robertson's glasses sends signals to a computer that's strapped around her waist. The computer then stimulates electrodes in the brain through a cord that attaches to the head.

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Ames (Iowa) Laboratory researchers have developed a porous silica nanosphere that can be taken up by a cell and deliver a payload into it on command. The nanospheres are roughly the size of a virus, so they won't trigger an immune response in the body.

The spheres have thousands of parallel channels running completely through them. The spheres soak up molecules of the drug to be delivered. When the channels are filled, the ends of channels are capped to safely seal the drug inside. The caps can be made of magnetic material, so that using a strong magnet externally, the spheres can be opened inside the cells, releasing their contents.

European scientists have developed a brain implant capable of receiving signals from more than 16,000 mammalian brain cells , and sending messages back to several hundred cells. (Learn more about Brain-Computer Interfaces in my previous post.)

This is a dramatic improvement over the previous state-of-the-art BrainGate technology which allowed some one hundred neural connections.

In addition to the number of connections allowed, the new technology is more "embedded", in that transistors and other components are inside the implant itself, and changes were made to the neurons themselves. This compared to BrainGate, which is really just a tiny set of probes, with all the processing done in a back-end computer.

Nanotechnologists from the University of Texas at Dallas have made artificial muscles that are 100 times stronger than natural muscles. These muscles are fuled by alcohol and hydrogen.

These muscles could enable fuel-powered artificial limbs, "smart skins" and morphing structures for air and marine vehicles, autonomous robots having very long mission capabilities and smart sensors that detect and self-actuate to change the environment.

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