Tiny tech emerges in a BIG way
By A.S. Berman
Gannett News Service
To a culture raised on glitzy superheroes and infatuated with Harry Potter, science has seemed like the grandmother who gives you socks for your birthday. Generous, certainly, but practical to a fault.
UPN photo
That may change with the emergence of nanotechnology, a science that promises miracles.
Christopher Gorham plays Jake Foley, who is transformed into a super-spy by being infused with microscopic computers, in "Jake 2.0."
And with the recent launch of UPN's sci-fi adventure "Jake 2.0" (2:30 p.m. Sundays, KGMB), it has gained a human face.
In the series, computer nerd Jake Foley (Christopher Gorham) is transformed into a super-spy when he's accidentally infused with millions of microscopic computers.
Many researchers say that, within a few decades, these and other possibilities could become a reality through tiny machines that will work from inside the human body.
In the meantime, consumers have already reaped more down-to-earth benefits from the emerging science in the form of stain-resistant clothing, near-invisible suntan lotion and other products developed by designing materials at the molecular level.
Government and industry are so sure that nanotechnology will be the "next big thing" in technology that global spending on research is expected to reach $2 billion this year alone.
The payoffs could be extraordinary.
Computers built in this way, for example, could use the quirky laws of quantum physics to complete calculations millions of times faster than supercomputers do today.
When "Jake 2.0" creator/executive producer Silvio Horta was looking to bring a new type of superhero to the small screen, nanotechnology struck him as the way to go.
Horta was particularly inspired by research under way at the Institute For Soldier Nanotechnologies, a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Begun last year with a five-year, $50-million grant from the U.S. Army, the institute has been tasked with using nanotechnology to create a battle suit that will resist bullets and chemical agents and possibly even tend to the wounds of its wearer.
"The next step," Horta says, "is having ... (this technology) in your body."
Which is precisely what Jake experiences when a freak accident injects tiny computers, or nanites, into his system. He finds himself able to see and hear over great distances, toss bad guys around like rag dolls, and communicate with computers and other electronic equipment around him.
"There's definitely going to have to be some suspension of disbelief," Horta says.
But researchers already have injected lab animals with nano devices that destroy cancerous tumors, says Steve Crosby, president and publisher of Small Times, a magazine that tracks developments in the nanotechnology industry.
These nanoshells, which contain tiny flecks of gold, eventually attach themselves to tumors.
"Then ... (scientists) can take infrared light that passes through the skin and shine it where the tumor is," Crosby says. That "activates these gold nanoshells, which heat up the tumor and kill it."
If perfected, this targeted cancer treatment could do away with the need for radiation and chemotherapy.
In the next few years, you may also see developments on the alternative fuel front, says David Rotman, executive editor of MIT's Technology Review magazine.
"One of the really interesting things that are not yet commercially available are new building materials that have solar cells embedded in them," Rotman says.
The question many people may want answered is: How close are we to acquiring the enhanced strength and super senses seen in "Jake 2.0"?
"I don't see the research being done right now that will get you there," says Rotman.
