Vectran is a high-performance thermoplastic multifilament yarn spun from Vectra? liquid crystal polymer (LCP). Vectran is the only commercially available melt spun LCP fiber in the world. Vectran fiber exhibits exceptional strength and rigidity. Pound for pound Vectran fiber is five times stronger than steel and ten times stronger than aluminum.These unique properties characterize Vectran:

• High strength and modulus
  
• Excellent creep resistance
  
• High abrasion resistance
  
• Excellent flex/fold characteristics
  
• Minimal moisture absorption
  
• Excellent chemical resistance
  
• Low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE)
  
• High dielectric strength
  
• Outstanding cut resistance
  
• Excellent property retention at high/low temperatures
  
• Outstanding vibration damping characteristics
  
• High impact resistance

The fabric of choice for the Bigelow Aerospace inflatable module concept is a synthetic material called Vectran. It was used as the airbag fabric for the last three NASA Mars lander missions ? the Spirit and Opportunity robots, as well as Mars Pathfinder that deployed the Sojourner rover.

Vectran has almost twice the strength of other synthetic materials, such as Kevlar, and performs better at cold temperatures.

"A Biological Processing Unit (BPU) is the biological equivalent of a computer?s CPU. Using DNA strands as input and output, two of the DNA amino acids as computer bits, and two enzymes (for cut and paste respectively). The early 2-state/2-symbol BPU published in November 2001 had approximately 10^9 units, collectively they took up 1 ml in volume and could perform at 1GHz. Not bad when you consider that Electronic CPU?s took nearly 80 years of technical advances to get to the same speeds."

Well, immortality, the end of economics...functional nanotech would pretty much guarantee both of those, because there would be, you know, no reason to die, (laughs) if you had sufficient nanotech to keep resetting the little cellular clocks. And, with even, even sort of half-assed nanotech, you could make anything out of anything. So, you could make gold bars out of McDonald's burgers, and McDonald's burgers out of garbage. And there'd be...there's no basis for this whole thing that we've always done about value. Anyone could have anything...anything they wanted at any time. And everything, including human beings, would be completely protean. We could look and act like anything at all. It's a compelling vision, but it's not just one that I'm able to get...get my head around. There's no traction for me there. It's the point where I really do belong to "The Old Order."

--William Gibson (Interviewed)

Drexlerian Nanotechnology: The specific area of Molecular Nanotechnology where the machines are designed to be self-reproducing in addition to their main task of molecular level construction of some other construct.

Programmable and autonomous computing machine made of biomolecules

YAAKOV?BENENSON*?, TAMAR?PAZ-ELIZUR?, RIVKA?ADAR?, EHUD?KEINAN??, ZVI?LIVNEH? & EHUD?SHAPIRO*?

*?Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
??Department of Biological Chemistry, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
??Department of Chemistry and Institute of Catalysis Science and Technology Technion ? Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
??Department of Molecular Biology and Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 92037, USA

Devices that convert information from one form into another according to a definite procedure are known as automata. One such hypothetical device is the universal Turing machine, which stimulated work leading to the development of modern computers. The Turing machine and its special cases, including finite automata, operate by scanning a data tape, whose striking analogy to information-encoding biopolymers inspired several designs for molecular DNA computers. Laboratory-scale computing using DNA and human-assisted protocols has been demonstrated, but the realization of computing devices operating autonomously on the molecular scale remains rare. Here we describe a programmable finite automaton comprising DNA and DNA-manipulating enzymes that solves computational problems autonomously. The automaton's hardware consists of a restriction nuclease and ligase, the software and input are encoded by double-stranded DNA, and programming amounts to choosing appropriate software molecules. Upon mixing solutions containing these components, the automaton processes the input molecule via a cascade of restriction, hybridization and ligation cycles, producing a detectable output molecule that encodes the automaton's final state, and thus the computational result. In our implementation 10¹² automata sharing the same software run independently and in parallel on inputs (which could, in principle, be distinct) in 120??l solution at room temperature at a combined rate of 10⁹ transitions per second with a transition fidelity greater than 99.8%, consuming less than 10^-10?W.

A "Trillion" Computers In A Single Drop Of Water
Nov 26, 2001

A group of scientists headed by Prof. Ehud Shapiro at the Weizmann Institute of Science has used biological molecules to create a tiny computer -- a programmable two-state, two-symbol finite automaton -- in a test tube.

Reported in the Nov 22 edition of Nature, this biological nanocomputer is so small that a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) such computers co-exist and compute in parallel, in a drop the size of 1/10 of a milliliter of watery solution held at room temperature. Collectively, the computers perform a billion operations per second with greater than 99.8% accuracy per operation while requiring less than a billionth of a Watt of power.

This study may lead to future computers that can operate within the human body, interacting with its biochemical environment to yield far-reaching biological and pharmaceutical applications.

The computer's input, output, and 'software' are made up of DNA molecules. For 'hardware,' the computer uses two naturally occurring enzymes that manipulate DNA.

When mixed together in solution, the software and hardware molecules operate in harmony on the input molecule to create the output molecule, forming a simple mathematical computing machine, known as a finite automaton.

This nanocomputer can be programmed to perform several simple tasks by choosing different software molecules to be mixed in solution. For instance, it can detect whether, in an input molecule encoding a list made of 0's and 1's, all the 0's precede all the 1's.

'The living cell contains incredible molecular machines that manipulate information-encoding molecules such as DNA and RNA in ways that are fundamentally very similar to computation,' says Prof. Shapiro of the Institute's Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Department and the Biological Chemistry Department.

'Since we don't know how to effectively modify these machines or create new ones just yet, the trick is to find naturally existing machines that, when combined, can be steered to actually compute.'

Shapiro challenged his Ph.D. student, Yaakov Benenson, to do just that: to find a molecular realization of one the simplest mathematical computing machines -- a finite automaton that detects whether a list of 0's and 1's has an even number of 1's.

Benenson came up with a solution using DNA molecules and two naturally occurring DNA- manipulating enzymes: Fok-I and Ligase. Operating much like a biological editing kit, Fok-I functions as a chemical scissors, cleaving DNA in a specific pattern, whereas the Ligase enzyme seals DNA molecules together.

As the lab work progressed, Shapiro and his team realized that the automaton they built could be programmed to perform different tasks by selecting different subsets of the molecules realizing the eight possible rules of operation controlling the performance of a two-state, two-symbol finite automaton.

The software molecules, together with two 'output display' molecules used to visualize the final result of the computation, can be used to create a total of 765 software programs.

Several of these programs were tested in the lab, including the 'even 1's checker' and the '0's before 1's' test mentioned above, as well as programs that check whether a list of 0's and 1's has at least (or at most) one 0, and whether it both starts with a 0 and ends with a 1.

The nanocomputer created by Shapiro's team uses the four DNA bases known as A, G, C and T, to encode the input data as well as the program rules underlying the computer 'software.' Both input and software molecules are designed to have one DNA strand longer than the other, resulting in a single-strand overhang called a 'sticky end.'

Two molecules with complementary sticky ends can temporarily stick to each other (a process known as hybridization), allowing DNA Ligase to permanently seal them into one molecule. The sticky end of the input molecule encodes the current symbol and the current state of the computation, whereas the sticky end of each 'software' molecule is designed to detect a particular state-symbol combination.

A two-state, two-symbol automaton has four such combinations. For each combination the nanocomputer has two possible next moves, to remain in the same state or to change to the other state, allowing eight software molecules to cover all possibilities.

In each processing step the input molecule hybridizes with a software molecule that has a complementary sticky end, allowing Ligase to seal them together using two ATP molecules as energy.

Then comes Fok-I, detecting a special site in the software molecule known as the recognition site. It cleaves the input molecule in a location determined by the software molecule, thus exposing a sticky end that encodes the next input symbol and the next state of the computation.

Once the last input symbol is processed, a sticky end encoding the final state of the computation is exposed and detected, again by hybridization and ligation, by one of two 'output display' molecules. The resulting molecule, which reports the output of the computation, is made visible to the human eye in a process known as gel electrophoresis.

The nanocomputer created is too simple to have immediate applications, however it may pave the way to future computers that can operate within the human body with unique biological and pharmaceutical applications.

'For instance, such a future computer could sense an abnormal biochemical change in the body and decide how to correct it by synthesizing and releasing the necessary drug,' says Prof. Zvi Livneh, a DNA expert from the Institute's Department of Biological Chemistry who collaborated on this project.

Nanotech Internal Logics Development Timeline:

2001: BIO/CMP: Euhd Shapiro and Yaakov Benenson build first Biological Processing Unit. A 2-state automata capable of operating any of 735 programs at GHz speeds.
2001: CHM: Researchers at IBM develop a method to grow specific nanotubes in formation.
2001: CHM/ENG: Florian Banhart develops technique to weld nanotubes together.
2001: ELC/CHM: Honk Kong Scientists discover that nanotubes can superconduct.
2001: PHY/ENG: Researchers led by Scott Diddums build atomic clock measuring approx. 10^15 ticks per second.
2001: ELC: Researchers at IBM build first logic gate (?NOT?) on the surface of a (1.4nm) nanotube
2001: MOL: Cees Dekker at Delft University develops 100nm logic gates with gain of 10 to 20, high enough to use in digital circuits.
2003: CMP/OPT: Researchers led by Kathryn Guarini at IBM build 20x40nm memory crystals.
2003: BIO/MOL: Thomas LaBean and colleagues from Duke University develope DNA tubes capable of self-assembling into circuits and turning to 20nm diam. wires.
2003: CMP/ELC/ENG/CHM: Berkeley Researchers build first integrated circuits from nanotubes.

Issac Assimov's 1940 Laws of Robotics

First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The Foresight Institute's 1999 Guidelines on Molecular Nanotechnology

Molecular NanoTechnology (MNT) includes a wide variety of technologies that have very different risk profiles. Access to the end products of MNT should be distinguished from access to the various forms of the underlying development technology. Access to MNT products should be unrestricted unless this access poses a risk to global security.

Accidental or willful misuse of MNT must be constrained by legal liability and, where appropriate, subject to criminal prosecution.

Governments, companies, and individuals who refuse or fail to follow responsible principles and guidelines for development and dissemination of MNT should, if possible, be placed at a competitive disadvantage with respect to access to MNT intellectual property, technology, and markets.

MNT device designs should incorporate provisions for built-in safety mechanisms, such as: 1) absolute dependence on a single artificial fuel source or artificial "vitamins" that don't exist in any natural environment; 2) making devices that are dependent on broadcast transmissions for replication or in some cases operation; 3) routing control signal paths throughout a device, so that subassemblies do not function independently; 4) programming termination dates into devices, and 5) other innovations in laboratory or device safety technology developed specifically to address the potential dangers of MNT. Further research is needed on MNT risk management, as well as the theory, mechanisms, and experimental designs for built-in safeguard systems.