Nanites Could be Attacked by Immune System

A dust mite is 200 micro meters and a red blood cell is 20 micro meters. We have an idea how tiny a dust mite is, but such a tiny parasite looks colossal next to a red blood cell. These cells are so tiny yet there are millions of them in our body. When we begin to examine viruses we are going even smaller and a microscopic red blood cell dwarfs smaller virus bodies like Rhinovirus or Ebola virus. Nanoengineers dream of building machines as small as this to go into bodies. This is called nanotechnology. Of course not all microscopic machines are designed to go into the body so nanotech science goes beyond biology and into a multitude of fields.

Our white blood cells attack any small foreign body like an intrusive virus; they are important among our body protective systems and are larger than red blood cells. Sometimes we contract a gem or virus and we will catch colds or flu. This makes us ill for a weak or a few days but these anti bodies get to work and relentlessly try to devour any type of intrusive foreign body that enters our blood stream. Under a microscope a white blood cell can be seen moving through the blood stream hunting bacteria that might be harmful. It moves as protoplasm, moving and pursuing around red blood cells, after a gem and then engulfing it.

Our Immune System also contains natural killer cells too. These are very aggressive soldier cells that flow among the red blood cells. When they come across dangerous cancerous cells they will attack the unwanted agent by attaching itself to the membrane wall and injecting a toxin. This causes the toxin infected cell membrane to breakdown structurally. The organic debris scatters and dilutes through the blood stream – being further cleansed by white cells mopping up. This activity is constant and our bodies are like vast machines constantly being maintained by these soldiers within our biological system.

With the onset of nanotechnology, biologist and nanoengineers want to look at ways of introducing microscopic nanites into a human body to attack cancer cells and other viruses the same way as our immune system’s warrior cells do. With nanotechnology scientists believe they will one day have better and more focused abilities when cancer develops beyond the capability of our natural immune system. Very often our immune systems break down or are unable to cope with some diseases or infections that become too strong.

One of the main obstacles for nanoengineers and biologists is to convince the immune system that the migrating nanites are part of the immune system too. Otherwise the microscopic machines will be attacked by natural killer cells and sprayed by a toxic bursts when the natural immune system decides these nanites are bacteria or cancerous too. The white blood cells might engulf the micro machines too, deciding they are unwanted bacteria. All of these complications must be overcome by nanoengineers, searching ways of tricking or convincing the immune system that the migrating nanites are natural parts of the body immune system too.

With the achievement of such micro programing, the pathway to all sorts of cures may be possible. Cancer and tumours could be accessed in the body without the use of hit and miss chemotherapy and the often discomforting side effects.

The technical expertise of building such complex microscopic machines, the size of a virus is mind boggling, but the technology is here and is being modified and upgraded constantly. It will be soon when nanites can travel about the body in harmony with white blood cells and the aggressive natural killer cells. The nanites will have an ability to target a harmful cell or bacterial virus with new innovations designed by biologists. Perhaps a protein that cancer cells find fatal.   

                                                                                              

UFO Story - RAF scramble leaves a few red faces

In November of 2009 the British Ministry of Defence - UFO unit recieved so many calls it had to shut down. There had never been anything like it. The RAF was alerted and fighter jets were scrambled. Many reports had come from specific area and the air control authorities had no explanation for the unscheduled flight of a multitude of UFOs

The UFO desk was swamped and there was not enough staff to handle the calls. The previous year they had 209 reports from various locations, but this amounted to 600 + and in one vicinity in an hour - hey - bingo big time! Can you imagine it at the RAF base as the siren, or whatever its called, goes off?

Pilots and Navigators scramble for their Tornado's and off they go. This is not a drill - its the real thing - this is what they have been trained for. Radio messages going to and throw - "Delta zero four, to Tango tango, foxtrot, Charlie," and all that sort of paraphernalia I don't understand, but you get the picture. They are heading for UFOs - loads of them. If there are any American airbases close to hand - how about it?

With great aplomb, we of Churchill's 'so many' look to the boys in blue that are; Churchill's 'so few.' They zip through the night sky ominously approaching the location and see the array of floating lights high in the night sky. Loads more; "Delta zero four, to Tango tango, foxtrot, Charlie - there are many lights in the sky, going in over."

"Right ho Delta zero four, happy hunting, over."

Below, the Chinese wedding party looked up into the night sky, happy with their traditional fire lanterns that have been released to float into the night. Perhaps it would have been better if the blooming RAF had not come along and gate crashed the celebration. 

"Delta zero four, to Tango tango, foxtrot, Charlie," and all the usual paraphernalia. "Returning to base with bums in our hands, over."  :) 

Humanoid Robots will become Domestic Appliances.

Robotic engineering is increasing at mind boggling rates. How long before we have such things as domestic appliances. How quickly will the new upgrades start coming out as we quickly replace them the way we do mobile phones or computer tablets?

I can imagine them with their own mobile phone systems. You'll ring home and it will answer. You'll tell it what you want for dinner and it would have done all the chores. We will become even more lazy. They might have agricultural ones ploughing fields and picking crops. Where will it stop and what will we do? Devote ourselves to scientific or artistic past times? Yes everything sounds Hunky Dory or will it be?

Even out in Space they could be used. We were talking about mining asteroids and using them as vehicles in space or extracting minerals from them. Rather than use astronauts in such a hazardous enterprise, how about robots? We could reduce the risk and it all seems very probable that this type of solution will be used.

Again, robotics make the possibility of many tasks we perform even more remote. The benefits of such machines could be tremendous. The amount of unemployed looks even worse however. A vast amount of the population will need to be motivated or we could all drift into a state of apathy.

I find the above YouTube clip exciting and also potentially scary. Not the machines, but they way mass populations would become because of them being domestic appliances, which I sincerely believe will happen. I think if we do not adjust ourselves to the potential pit falls, we could ruin our society for some considerable time.

Out on the fringe would be great; like mining or space exploration in hazardous areas. This I see as positive, but that trend of domestic reliability is the one that makes me wobble.

Paranormal Experience with or without Scientific Proof

I always search for something and can't believe in nothing. Everything seems pointless if we journey through life to see void. I just find it hard, however, to accept ghost mediums and things like that. I do have an interest in past life transgression too. I have to confess that there is a part of me that says the report might be biased in support of the paranormal experience, but some of this is difficult to speak against. I lean to the belief slightly, but remain cautious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnJ3qOnSZ14&hd=1

The Problem with Cryogenics

The reason why we can't revive frozen people

Theories that might solve the problem

Cryogenics can be very useful to us in the future if the defrosting can be mastered to bring a human out of deep freeze intact. Obviously, it is much easier said and imagined in theory. It is of course, illegal to freeze a living person and cryonics means living and frozen. There are people with terminal diseases who have volunteered to be frozen, but even these are technically dead when the process starts. A terminal patient dies in as much as the heart monitor goes dead, but the neurological part may not have yet shut down. Therefore the subject is not brain dead.

This is when our Cryogenic scientists spring into action. Anyone who imagines a group of having go mercenaries might be forgiven. The technically dead people are wrapped and quickly rushed off by a team of scientists who are discovering as they go. The body enters a cryogenic chamber and is nothing more than a specimen lab rat that previously hoped for the best and is perhaps – still hoping.

Ice can preserve, while a body remains frozen. It can even stop ageing, but defrosting back to life is a whole new challenge. We freeze embryos and have been able to produce life from them after defrosting and placing into a uterus. But multiple celled creatures like human beings cause great problems for cryogenic scientists, who search for ways of prolonging life and bringing someone out of cryogenic freezing intact.

The fact that no human has been successfully brought out of cryogenic freezing intact is not too encouraging either, but this does not mean it can’t be done one day. We know some amphibious life has come out of frozen stasis because these creatures have a protein in their cells that activate in cold temperatures. This acts like antifreeze which protects the cells when thawing. It stops crystallization.   

When you see a minute magnified ice crystal under a microscope, imagine it in a human cell. A minute sack with a membrane wall. The little sharp stalagmite edges would rupture such membranes. Imagine if it is what happens inside every human cell when frozen. Perhaps the best way to explain the damage is to visualize a gigantic model of a body as tall as a building. The wall and internal organs have been made out of bubble wrap. Each bubble of all these millions upon millions of bubbles gets filled with liquid. We see this epidermis of bubble wrap in the shape of a giant person. Then we freeze it. All the liquid inside each bubble becomes sharp crystal stalactites and stalagmites it also expands inside each bubble. The plastic of each bubble’s wall would puncture and when the model cooled down all the liquid would run out of the bubble wrap.

Such ice crystals would puncture our cell walls and as we defrost our cell structures can't contain water and we turn to mush. That is why we can't defrost frozen people.

CubeSats - Wonderful Little Parasites

CubeSats are a class of research spacecraft that are a sort of nano-satellite. The cube-shaped satellites are approximately four inches long, have a volume of about one quart and weigh about 3 pounds. They sometimes clip two or three together to contain more monitoring and com links. A U-1 CubeSat is just one 3 pound four inch square satellite,while a U-2 or U-3 is the number of CubeSats clipped together. It is housed in a big square container at the outer side of the main launch vehicle once in space. This container acts like a sort of pea pod called a Nanosatellite Launch Adaptor System (NLAS.) When it opens, these small CubeSats are released like peas floating out over the stratosphere or where ever else the project owner’s might wish to take them. CubeSats have been used to patrol around space stations or satellites to search for malfunctions or other damage. They can gently breeze the length of solar panels and check that all is well, even report minor cracks that can be tackled more immediately in case a blemish develops and becomes more substantial.

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative(CSLI) provides opportunities for small satellite payloads (CubeSats) to fly on rockets planned for upcoming launches. These CubeSats are flown as auxiliary and minor ventures upon previously planned and ulterior missions. They are a collection of small independent auxiliary projects that may leave the host launch and go off in search of knowledge in a number of fields. They might photograph Earth and study weather conditions, search independently for asteroids, look at the moon, Mars, Venus. Watch test samples in a space vacuum. There are all sorts of things. For a school or university to win the chance of controlling a CubeSat, they have to pass stringent tests via NASA monitors - people that judge how each project is viable, and also of use to NASA. For they will have access to all information gathered by each CubeSat before the information goes down to the school or university that wins the project.

There are already many CubeSats in orbit and a growing number of projects already in motion. NASA gets useful free information by allowing these independent CubeSats, which are really just parasite travellers on the main launch project. In return many good things in smallpackages come NASA’s way. Everyone wins when this experimental information starts to come in. They can cost between $65,000 and $80,000 a CubeSat. If there is a launch that can carry four or five CubeSats, NASA gets a little of the cost back towards the main mission and a potential amount of updated and free information. It also insures that they have growing and enthusiastic candidates for future space exploration technology.

These wonderful little parasitical space craft will develop over the decades and all launches might be able to lower funding costs by accommodating CubeSat projects. NASA may find ways to lower costs of building launch projects too, especially with developing re-usable craft like the Orion MPCV. Every time an Orion launch goes up it will have a main project, but depending on how many CubeSat projects at odd $65,000 + it can get aboard; I wonder if re-launchable MPCV could claw back substantial finances against original costs of building main launch projects. Imagine the return in the shape of four inch cubes. Also not to forget long term return and free information updates. NASA may have stumbled upon large numbers of independent projects lining up to be selected and waiting to hand over the money to get a CubeSat into space.