MIT, US Army nanotechnology center....

[Dr Mordrid]

Dow Corning, DuPont, Raytheon, Carbon Nanotechnologies and others are participating in the center.

Projects:

Stain-proof fabrics (coming to market from Nano-Tex)

Energy-absorbing materials (to absorb or deflect directed energy attacks)

Mehanically active materials (ex: artificial muscles for exo-skeletons, embedded automatic tournequets etc.)

Sensors that warn of chemical or biological attacks

Nano medical devices

Advanced manufacturing techniques for nanomaterials

Nanomaterial integration

Advanced modeling and material simulation

Look for some wild stuff out of this place....exp. if the artificial muscles work out. This could be a boon to the handicapped as well as the military (anyone remember the old TV show "MANTIS"?).

Dr. Mordrid

[The PIT]

Watch out here come The Borg.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Battletech Mechs too!

[Dr Mordrid]

This from DARPA - DSO (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - Defense Sciences Office);

Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA)

The overall goal of the Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation (EHPA) Program is to develop devices and machines that will increase the speed, strength, and endurance of soldiers in combat environments. Projects will lead to self-powered, controlled, and wearable exoskeletal devices and/or machines and demonstrations of their utility in military applications. Inclusion of exoskeleton technology into land-based operations could potentially increase the capabilities of the ground-based warfighter and radically alter the current military doctrine. This technology will extend the mission payload and/or mission range of the soldier and increase the lethality and survivability of ground troops for short-range missions and special operations.

Four EHPA projects are conducting research that will lead to the design and build a fully integrated exoskeleton system. Other projects are concerned with the development of power producing devices that could be integrated into a complete augmentation system.

Sure as hell sounds like a Battletech Mech to me....

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

Nah, that's just powered armor. To be considered a "Mech", it should be signficantly larger than the person operating it, and not just augment the users strength, but replace it totally.

I wonder what power source they plan on using on something like that anyway, fusion power doesn't exist yet, and even those wierd x-ray activated nuclear battery things probably put out too much radiation to be safe to have powered up that close to a person. Should be interesting to see what they come up with though.

[Dr Mordrid]

If you think it's too small then you fight the sonofabitch in a dark alley

As for power; DARPA has some rather interesting things in the labs regarding this...including one called Palm Power. It's a micro-sized powerplant that will at first output 20w but will scale up to 500w for production.

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

[Brian Ellis]

For nanotechnology, the most impressive site I know is the Sandia labs MEMS one, with videos of nanomachines actually working, at http://www.sandia.gov/mstc/technolog...es/movies.html

There are probably hundreds of working examples in different categories. The following is a still of a machine, with the legs of a spider mite, to scale it (these mites are just visible to the naked eye).



And yes, these nanomachines do have practical commercial applications. For example, to trigger airbags.

[az]

Wot? No Killing? BOOOORING!

AZ