DNA nano-bots

As long as we are dominated by the capitalist dictate of short term profit, new and highly promising technologies will bring with them the threat of new unprecedented disasters. An economic system organized around the principle of the greatest benefit to all, controlled collectively by the people actually doing the work, could develop this technology much more rapidly and at the same time much more carefully. -DougN

"An industrial assembly line includes a factory, workers and a conveyor system," said Dr. Seeman. "We have emulated each of those features using DNA components."

By triggering different DNA sequences, the researchers could order up to eight different combinations in their experimental product line.

"It is very significant," said California Institute of Technology bioengineer Paul Rothemund, who was not involved in either project. "This is the kind of thing that happens in living cells all the time."

Biochemist Lloyd Smith at the University of Wisconsin in Madison cautioned that it may be a decade or more before DNA nanotechnology leads to any useful applications.

"This is a field to watch," Dr. Smith said. "But this is still fundamental research to find out what ability mankind has to make molecules that can do its bidding."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704247904575240380352719428.html