"Benford-Biotech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benford Gregory)

Cells get their energy by diffusion of gases and liquids; nanotech must be
driven by electrical currents on fixed circuits. Cells contain and moderate with
spongy membranes; nanoengines must have specific geometries, with little slack
allowed. Natural things grow "organically," with parts adjusting to one another,
nanobuilders must stack together identical units, like tinker-toys.

The Natural style vs. the Mechanical style will be the essential battleground of
tiny technology. Mechanicals we must design from scratch. Naturals will and have
evolved; their talents we get for free. Each will have its uses.

Naturals can make things quickly, easily, including copies of
themselves--reproduction. They do this by having what Drexler terms "selective
stickiness" -- the matching of complementary patterns when large molecules like
proteins collide. If they fit, they stick. Thermal agitation makes them smack
into each other many millions of times a second, letting the stickiness work to
mate the fight molecules.

Naturals build, and as time goes on, they build better -- through evolution. In
Naturals, genes diffuse, meeting each other in myriad combinations. Minor facets
of our faces change so much from one person to the next that we can tell all our
friends apart at a glance {except for identical twins, like me).

These genes collide in the population, making evolutionary change far more rapid
because genes can spread through the species, getting tried out in many
combinations. Eventually, some do far better, and spread to everyone in later
generations.

This diffusion mechanism makes sexually reproduced Naturals change constantly.
Mechanicals -- robots of any size, down to nanotech -- have no need of such;
they are designed. There is no point in building into nanomachines the array of
special talents needed to make them evolve --in fact, it's a hindrance. It could
become a danger, too.

We don't want nanobots which adapt to the random forces of their environment,
taking off on some unknown selection vector. We want them to do their job. And
only their job.

So nanotech must use the Mechanical virtues: rigid, geometric structures;
positional assembly of parts; clear channels of transport for energy,
information and materials. Mechanicals should not copy Naturals, especially in
aping the ability to evolve.

This simple distinction should lessen many calls of alarm about such invisible,
powerful agents. They can't escape into the biosphere and wreck it. Their style
and elements are fundamentally alien to our familiar Naturals, born red in tooth
and claw.

Nanobots' real problem will be to survive in their working environment,
including our bodies. Imagine what your immune system will want to do to an