X-Message-Number: 21157
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 08:12:00 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #21137 - #21154

HO HUM... more for those who don't like my comments:

For Mr. Kluytmans: There are lots of problems with the nanodevices
you propose to replace our red blood cells. OK, so lets suppose
that they hold oxygen at high pressure. Oxygen is not only metabolically
necessary but also a poison. If you deliver too much too locally, then
you poison the cells you're giving it to, not help them. How do you
control that problem, given that they carry much more oxygen than 
a single red blood cell? And if they carry roughly the same amount,
then what purpose is served by compressing it in the first place?

And yes, enzymes do use covalent binding, and enzymes also provide
the closest biological versions to the systems you are discussing ...
including their size. How do your nanomachines connect themselves
together? By covalent bonding? So you have this nanomachine which
has several officially moving parts bound together strongly...so
much so that the officially moving parts can't move. 

As for asking engineers about when strength is needed, which engineers
do you intend to ask? Most would say that it's sometimes needed
and other times a disadvantage because of the amount of material
used to make a part strong way exceeds what is needed, or even 
interferes with its action. Would the engineers designing tires 
say that they must be hard and strong? Maybe bicycle tires, or not
even them.

Ultimately we are arguing about whether devices made by pure theory
without actually trying to make them can be made better than any
devices which either presently exist or can be built as prototypes
now. And yes, if you reply to any problems I raise with further
details of your theoretical devices, then you can always come up
with a fix ... it may fix the problem I raise, but open one more
problem, and on and on. I will point out, and I hope that both
you and Freitas are fully aware of this, that several inventions
designed to substitute for the O2 carrying feature of red blood
cells have already been invented and are under trial. Generally
they are NOT hard  ... I don't know of any which are ... and (like
any existing device) do have some problems, which their inventors
are busily working to overcome. That will likely happen some 
time before your nanodevices even become prototypes to be tested.

For Michael Price:

I don't understand your comments at all. Making a quantum device
with many parts tied together on a quantum level has turned out
to be one of the major problems in making a true quantum computer.
That is why you get reports of such computers only working with
2 bits... at the time of the report, a major advance.

Please explain.

          Best wishes and long long life for all,

              Thomas Donaldson

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