To complicate things further, nanotech and nanoscience are now popularly synonymous with "miniature robots that will turn the world into
grey goo" or miniscule invisible threatsto our health and environment.
OUR VERDICT: 'It started like a normal mask:
grey goo all the face; wait 15 mins.
OUR VERDICT: "It started like a normal mask:
grey goo all over the face; wait 15 mins.
They discuss nine different world-ending events from the "
grey goo" of self-replicating nanobots to the possibility of being caught up in the shock waves of a cosmic blast from an exploding supernova.
Erich Drexler's infamous "
Grey Goo" hypothesis, in his 1986 book Engines of Creation, which speculates about a self-replicating nanotechnology system that is accidentally released and overruns the world.) The warhead devours most of Paris, leaving a memorable image of a half-dissolved Eiffel Tower in viewers' heads, before the good-guy soldiers save the day.
In 1986, Dr K Eric Drexler wrote Engines of Creation, popularising the idea of nanotechnology but also coining the term "
grey goo" to address the possibility of nano-sized replicating robots multiplying to frightening numbers.
Drexler imagined selfreplicating nanomachines running amok, and breaking down biological material, eventually turning everything into "
grey goo." Author Bill McKibben popularized this frightful idea in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered World (Times Books).
It quoted Prince Charles as saying it would be "surprising" if the technology did not "offer similar upsets" to thalidomide [the morning sickness drug that caused children to be born with deformed limbs.] Apparently, some critics are referring to it as a "
grey goo" of tiny particles with hidden harmful properties.
Once condemned as the stuff of nightmares - the famous
grey goo that could wipe out humankind - it has now entered the business consciousness as a potential saviour of Western economies.
TELECOMWORLDWIRE-20 November 2006-Second Life affected by
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Nanotechnology has been at the forefront of technological fears in recent years because people are afraid we will develop a dangerous organism that we cannot control--what nanotech pioneer Eric Drexler called "
grey goo." Frankly, "
grey goo" is a very long way off.