There is absolutely no science whatsoever in this entry. This is more along the lines of science fiction in terms of this just being me running with an idea I had a little while ago. I was talking about the IT Security innovation Ants a little while ago, and since my day at work is a little on the slow side right now, I have been semi-consciously running with the ball on the concept, or at least a slight alteration.

Again, I’m no expert in any of the technologies I’m talking about here. This is not to be read as me saying I have anything more than a kinda cool idea. I can’t say that it’s practical or even remotely feasible. Also, it’s entirely possible that some other much more brilliant minds are already running ahead with this research, and that I’m way late on the concept. That happened to me once upon a time when I explained a new idea I had to a coworker who then told me I had just on my own accord come up with the¬†n-tier software model. So if someone else is working on this, then give them credit and not me. It also borrows a bit from an engineering concept my good friend and former drummer Dongo has a patent on involving radio communications as a means of dealing with the status of oil drilling equipment.

So all that said, here we go.

I’m curious about the possibility of developing some nanotechnology similar in concept to the aforementioned ants, and my further fanboy thoughts about the technology from the other day, only these would be physical machines to be released for diagnostic purposes into the human body. The nanotechnology in question would be capable of looking for a handful of conditions in the system, say five for want of a better answer. These key signatures to look for reside in the bot’s¬†long term memory (ROM?), and in it’s short term memory (RAM), the bot¬†is able to store signatures from other bots.

When the bot encounters something that matches one of the signatures, it sends out a message to those bots in the area who store the signature in their short term memory and similarly broadcast the message. Depending on the closeness of the original broadcast, this would attract the bots, but leave the rest to continue searching for their various signatures.

As the bots swarm towards certain areas, they tell the monitoring doctors what signature they have found, how much of it they have found, and where it is located. When the test is finished, a particular command is issued by the doctors that all the bots have to respond to, calling them back to a common place for removal from the patient.

I think it’s a cool idea. But again, it’s certainly not well thought out, nor should this be the basis for someone to go out and start building this. My understanding of the technology just isn’t there, and I might be totally on glue as far as what the technology is capable of, or any number of other factors.

What do you think?

Jim