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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21157