Self-Assembling Swarms of Microrobots
Using an electrical signal to tell a swarm of microrobots to self-assemble into a desired structure has been demonstrated by researchers. The “artificial ant” won’t be far behind.

Herding Swarms of Microrobots – [technologyreview.com]

Imagine a swarm of microrobots—tiny devices a few hair widths across—swimming through your blood vessels and repairing damage, or zipping around in computer chips as a security lock, or quickly knitting together heart tissue. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Dartmouth College, and Duke University have shown how to use a single electrical signal to command a group of microrobots to self-assemble into larger structures. The researchers hope to use this method to build biological tissues. But for microrobots to do anything like that, researchers must first figure out a good way to control them.

Wait til terrorists get a hold of that technology :(

Hopefully Arnold Schwarzenegger is still alive for judgement day!

I am soooo getting bionic arms!

I was thinkin' a little futher south.

Bionic legs? hell why not just a whole bionic body then?

dragon means bionic fluff.

Sounds like an easy way for big corporations/banks/government to control us. :P

Define "control".

Nanobots keeping coronary arteries clear could save our health care system tens of billions of dollars a year.

Nanobots building bone scaffolds to eliminate long bone amputation could save our health care system billions of dollars a year.

Apply that to the human brain or any other major organ.

nanobots fixing body could mean even immortality as long as bots work.

Which means population control and Eugenics.

Even after we breed the Healthy Immortals, we have to find a place to put them off planet assuming something other than ZPG

lol I hope I am one of them immortals....but at the same time I dont

long distance space travels would be reality as long as there's oxygen and food.

Breeding "super humans", "playing GOD", will definitely lead to eugenics war(s). Seems as though a lot of these "science fiction" movie plots have been foreseen by "seers" seeing our future long before it actually arrives.

from artificial intelligence and control into self awareness
its a matter of time until self-awareness based on cold human logic turns machine against humans, irrespective of programming rules

ackula has watched too much terminators.

It's inevitable. It will happen, just a matter of when.

yea without asimov's laws.

Of coarse you were...LOL

wtf

I really think that the only "eugenics" will occur in cases where people want to pass of "unfixable" genetic traits to offspring and will be prohibited from doing so.

Medical science has us living longer as is. Unfortunately, Medical Science has done very little to eliminate the hugely expensive medical conditions that accompany advanced age.

SO what we get is the Perfect Storm. We extend the lives of people so they can develop the most costly diseases to treat with no cure to any of them in sight.

Some of you reading this RIGHT NOW will see it happen barring some Captain Trips type of Pandemic that ganks 50 or more% of the Population.

Don't get me wrong. I think this kind of technology will be great for Mankind, but even such nanobots can't stop the onset of Diseases that come from inferior genetics.

They can surely treat the symptoms, but the real trick is to eliminate any and all underlying causes.

Ever read the book "Prey"? We're all fluffed

Read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The notion has been around for a long time. Even H.G. Wells saw it when he wrote "The Time Machine".

It's an obvious eventuality.

Don't get me wrong. I think this kind of technology will be great for Mankind, but even such nanobots can't stop the onset of Diseases that come from inferior genetics.

They can surely treat the symptoms, but the real trick is to eliminate any and all underlying causes.

Heil Hitler!