Are we inventing the BORG?

Most of us watch the occasional show on TV that is in the Science Fiction genre and think of it as pure escapism. Some of us actually read the stories which SciFi writers produce and think of it as ways in which 'what if' scenarios are created.

In recent times those of you who are Star Trek fans have watched with interest a group called the BORG (no offence intended I am certain to people with that name from Malta).

Part human and part machine they represented a challenge to humans and their main claim to fame was the nanotechnology in their systems which enabled them to adapt to any threat to their survival and at the same time enable them through the adaptation process to lock on to scientific advances of all of the peoples that they 'absorbed'.

Truth is often the precursor to fiction but if the following is true then perhaps this time the fiction is leading us to the new truth.

Have a look at this: from New Scientist

You can create nanoscale machines by copying the way the immune system latches onto invading microbes

NANOSCALE machines and circuits could one day be assembled by exploiting the way immune systems latch onto invading bacteria and viruses. The idea has already been successfully used to guide individual nanotubes into position on a metal surface.

Researchers desperately need a way to assemble nanoscale devices. Nanotubes made from various substances can be used in many ways when building these devices: as passive components such as structural supports or conducting wires, or as the basis for active elements such as transistors or light emitters. But connecting up even a single nanotube between two points in a circuit, say, is much easier said than done. That's because a newly synthesised clump of nanotubes is much like a jumbled heap of lumber. The challenge is to pick one out and place it where you want it, says Rajesh Naik, biotechnology project leader at the US Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, ...