I have chosen to talk about the Biotechnology and Nanotechnology, as I know little about it, but the development in this field already affect strongly our life, and certainly our children will be touched by this phenomena.

The question that I am asking my self, is it a positive or a negative trend, how this will affect the near future and in the long-term.


Biotechnology:

As the name suggests it is the technology based on biology, especially in agriculture, food, science, and medicine.

"Biotechnology" means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use."


Biotechnology combines the following disciplines:
 Genetic engineering
 Molecular biology
 Biochemistry
 Embryology
 Cell biology

The practical discpiplines touched by this are:
 Chemical engeneering
 Information technology
 Robotics


A bit of history

Historically biotechnology is associated with the food industry, addressing the problems of femine and malnutrition.

After that the genetic engineering saw the birth, that’s when the biotechnology closely links the gotherment, the scientists and the society. In the 70’s the development of the synthesis of synthetic human inulin, gave a powerful spur to the evolution of biotechnology.

Today, The field of genetic engineering remains a REALLY heated topic of discussion in today’s society with the advent of gene therapy, stem cell research, cloning, and genetically-modified food. It is also used to produce biotechnological weapons. While it seems only natural nowadays to link pharmaceutical drugs as solutions to health and societal problems, this relationship of biotechnology serving social needs began centuries ago.

On the other hand, Biotechnology is also used to recycle, treat waste, clean up sites contaminated by industrial activities.

Red biotechnology is applied to medical processes - antibiotics, genetic cures through genomic manipulation.

Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes. A controversial technology as really debatable whether more environmentally friendly or not.
White biotechnology, also known as industrial biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical.
Blue biotechnology is a term that has been used to describe the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.


Bioeconomy : The investments and economic output of all of these types of applied biotechnologies form.

The main impacts are that the completely new products appear. The medicine and agriculture businesses are revolutionized; costs are cut drastically, which gives the margin for new and new researches. The economic impact also affects the patent creation, evolution of biotech startups, licensing fees. Scientific breakthroughs and technological progress will not only progress it will accelerate each year.

























NANOTECHNOLOGY




I have decided to write also/more about the nanotechnology, as after having read couple of articles I have realized that this is also extremely interesting topic. I was little aware of this, at least I didn’t have any idea how far did the nanotechnology go.

Nanotechnology – refered to a field of applied science and technology that are working on the control of the matter on the atomic and molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 nanometers, and the fabrication of devices that lie within that size.

Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. For example if we rearrange the atoms in coal, we get diamonds. If we rearrange the atoms in sand we get computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we get grass.
The humanity went thourough a greatest development. First we made stone tools and flint knives we have been arranging atoms in great thundering statistical heards by casting, milling, grinding, chipping and the like. We've gotten better at it: we can make more things at lower cost and greater precision than ever before. But at the molecular scale we're still making great ungainly heaps and untidy piles of atoms.
Eventually, we should be able to arrange and rearrange atoms to:
1. Build products with almost every atom in the right place.
2. Do so inexpensively.
3. Make most arrangements of atoms consistent with physical law.
It will completely revolutionise MANY industries and will let us make most products lighter, stronger, smarter, cheaper, cleaner and more precise.

It is a highly multidisciplinary field.

Examples of nanotechnology in the modern use are the manufacture of polymers based on molecular structure and the design of computer chip





The advantages


What would it mean if we could inexpensively make things with every atom in the right place? For starters, we could continue the revolution in computer hardware right down to molecular gates and wires -- something that today's lithographic methods (used to make computer chips) could never hope to do. We could inexpensively make very strong and very light materials: shatterproof diamond in precisely the shapes we want, by the ton, and over fifty times lighter than steel of the same strength. We could make a Cadillac that weighed fifty kilograms, or a full-sized sofa you could pick up with one hand. We could make surgical instruments of such precision and deftness that they could operate on the cells and even molecules from which we are made -- something well beyond today's medical technology. The list goes on -- almost any manufactured product could be improved, often by orders of magnitude.

Origins and fundamental concepts

The first use of the concept was described by professor Feynmann in 1959.

Today the official definition is “the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule”

Main discoveries: the birth of cluster science, invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope, fullerenes, carbon nonotubes, atomic force microscope.

Nano = one billionth of a meter.
Nanotechnology applications


The assemblers

The assemblers use programmable positional control to position molecular tools and molecular components, permitting the inexpensive fabrication of most structures consistent with physical law. Diamondoid materials in particular become inexpensive and commonplace, and their remarkable properties usher in what has been called the Diamond Age.

Nanomaterials
This includes subfields which develop or study materials having unique properties arising from their nanoscale dimensions.

There many many appmications
Cancer
The small size of nanoparticles endows them with properties that can be very useful in oncology, particularly in imaging.
Other
Although there has been much hype about the potential applications of nanotechnology, most current commercialized applications are limited to the use of "first generation" passive nanomaterials. These include titanium dioxide nanoparticles in sunscreen, cosmetics and some food products; silver nanoparticles in food packaging, clothing, disinfectants and household appliances; zinc oxide nanoparticles in sunscreens and cosmetics, surface coatings, paints and outdoor furniture varnishes; and cerium oxide nanoparticles as a fuel catalyst. Muchof what is sold as “nanotechnology” is in fact a recasting of straightforward materials science, which is leading to a “nanotech industry built solely on selling nanotubes, nanowires, and the like” which will “end up with a few suppliers selling low margin products in huge volumes."
Another large and beneficial outcome of nanotechnology is the production of potable water through the means of nanofiltration. Where much of the developing world lacks access to reliable water sources, nanotechnology may alleviate these issues upon further testing as have been performed in countries, such as South Africa

What will we be able to make in future?

For example, nanotechnology will let us inexpensively make shatterproof diamond (with a structure that might resemble diamond fibers) in exactly the shapes we want. This would let us make a Boeing 747 whose unloaded weight was 50 times lighter but just as strong.
Nanotechnology will dramatically reduce the costs and increase the capabilities of space ships and space flight. The strength-to-weight ratio and the cost of components are absolutely critical to the performance and economy of space ships: with nanotechnology, both of these parameters will be improved by one to two orders of magnitude. Improvements in these two parameters alone (ignoring other advantages provided by nanotechnology) should improve the overall cost/performance ratio by over three orders of magnitude..
Beyond inexpensively providing remarkably light and strong materials for space ships, nanotechnology will also provide extremely powerful computers with which to guide both those ships and a wide range of other activities in space.
Another thing the development of the computer chips and computers. We should be able to build mass storage devices that can store more than a hundred billion billion bytes in a volume the size of a sugar cube; RAM that can store a mere billion billion bytes in such a volume; and massively parallel computers of the same size that can deliver a billion billion instructions per second.
UNFORTUNATELY, this will also develop the effectiveness and the precision of weapons.
We'll also be able to build weapons both inexpensively and much more rapidly, at the same time taking full advantage of the remarkable materials properties of diamond. Rapid and inexpensive manufacture of great quantities of stronger more precise weapons guided by massively increased computational power will alter the way we fight wars. Changes of this magnitude could destabilize existing power structures in unpredictable ways.
Military applications of nanotechnology raise a number of concerns that prudence suggests we begin to investigate before, rather than after, we develop this new technology.
Nanotechnology will also cut costs both of the solar cells and the equipment needed to deploy them, making solar power economical. In this application we need not make new or technically superior solar cells: making inexpensively what we already know how to make expensively would move solar power into the mainstream.
GOOD THINNG, nanotechnology will help to develop the surgical tools. With the precision of drugs combined with the intelligent guidance of the surgeon's scalpel, we can expect a quantum leap in our medical capabilities.

Nanotechnology should let us make almost every manufactured product faster, lighter, stronger, smarter, safer and cleaner. We can already see many of the possibilities as these few examples illustrate. New products that solve new problems in new ways are more difficult to foresee, yet their impact is likely to be even greater. Could Edison have foreseen the computer, or Newton the communications satellite?

It is difficult to predict what it will have as the effect on the business models, one thing is sure; it will revolutionize all the production processes, costs structure and the products and offer itself. There will be MORE OFFER, at LOWER COST, produced MORE QUICKLY and EFFICIENTLY and much more STRONG and PRECISE.

Read this article that debunks the main myths concerning the nanotechnology.

Certainly, both the biotechnology and nanotechnology will stay there and develop. It’s a really powerful fields that allows incredible outcomes. The knowledge and the number of patents are progressing at an incredible pace. Now, is it a good thing or not? I would say that depends in which hands lies the knowledge. I think that biotechnology and nanotechnology could be used for the good of humanity but may also be a really dangerous enemy if used in the pervert reasons.

The future will show us are we on the way on the development and these will greatly benefit the mankind, or having this power in human hands will lead to abuse and destruction?..