X-Message-Number: 33036
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2010 09:25:56 -0400
From: 
Subject: Re: Nano-swimmers

   Ben Best wrote:

> Neither a desktop nanofactory nor glucose
> oxidation can adequately explain how
> untethered nanobots could operate at
> cryogenic temperatures.

Freeposity wrote:

> Why would you want to? Certainly you would want to work in  
> temperatures slightly above freezing during restoration work.

  For patients who have been straight-frozen
warming above freezing temperatures will
immediately give "mush" -- just like thawing
frozen strawberries (as so many of our ignorant
critics like to point out). You will actually
start to get "mush" well below freezing
temperatures because salt solutions turn
liquid well below freezing temperature.
Nanobots needing a liquid environment in
which to operate create the paradox that
as soon as a liquid environment becomes
present, broken tissues are subject to
hydrolysis and dissolution, if not chemical
reactions.

   For vitrified patients (or partially
cryoprotected patients) the liquid state
will begin to occur well below -100oC.
Possibly you could do repairs at those
temperatures, but any damaged tissues
will again be subject to dissolution
and drifting-away of fragments.

       -- Ben Best

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