the world is shrinking there's a deep and relatively unexplored world beyond what the human eye can see the microscopic world is truly alien and truly fascinating i'm delving further than the microscopic scale i'm going to explore the potentials of working at a nanoscopic level working at a level a billion times smaller than the average scale we work at today this is nanotechnology nanotechnology means any technology on a nanoscale that has applications in the real world nanotechnology is the science of building small and i mean really really small it's pretty difficult to imagine how small an
animator is but let's just take a moment to try and wrap our heads around it the tip of a pen is around a million nanometers wide so nowhere near close a single sheet of paper is around 75 000 nanometers thick my human hair is around 50 000 nanometers thick and i ran out of things to compare let's just take a different approach if a nanometer was the size of a football the coronavirus would be the size of an adult male a donut would be the size of new zealand and a chicken would be the size
of the earth in fact on a comparative scale if each person on earth was the size of a nanometer every single person on the planet would fit into a single car a hot wheels car you get the idea nano is super super tiny we're talking subatomic so that's how big or rather small a nanometer is but why does it matter why look at really small things well they ultimately teach us about the universe that we live in and we can do really interesting things with them when we move into the nanoscale we can work with
new domains and physics that don't really apply at any other scale nanoscience and nanotechnology can be used to reshape the world around us literally everything on earth is made up of atoms the food we eat the clothes we wear the buildings and houses we live in our own bodies now think for a moment about how a car works it's not only about having all the right parts they also need to be in the right place in order for the car to work properly this seems obvious right well in pretty much the same way how the
different atoms in something are arranged determines what pretty much anything around you does with nanotechnology it's possible to manipulate and take advantage of this much like arranging lego blocks to create a model building or airplane or spaceship but there's a catch and here's where things start to really get interesting the properties of things also change when they're made smaller phenomenon based on quantum effects the strange and sometimes counterintuitive behavior of atoms and subatomic particles occur naturally when matter is manipulated and organized at the nanoscale these so-called quantum effects dictate the behavior and properties of particles
so we know that the properties of materials are size dependent when working at the nanoscale this means that scientists have the power to adjust and fine-tune material properties and they've actually been able to do this for some time now it's possible to change properties such as melting point fluorescence electrical conductivity magnetic permeability and chemical reactivity to just name a few but where can we actually see the results of this kind of work well everywhere there are numerous commercial products already on the market that you and i use daily that wouldn't exist in the same way
without having been manipulated and modified using nanotechnology some examples include clear nanoscale films on glasses and other surfaces to make them water resistant scratch resistant or anti-reflective cars trucks airplanes boats and spacecraft can be made out of increasingly lightweight materials we're shrinking the size of computer chips in turn helping to enlarge memory capacity we're making our smartphones even smarter with features like nano generators to charge our phones while we walk we're enabling the delivery and release of drugs to an exact location within the body with precise timing making treatments more effective than ever before there's
quite a list and that's only a few of the potential applications let's delve into a few of these in more detail nanotechnology has been pivotal in advancing computing and electronics leading to faster smaller smarter and more portable systems and products it is now considered completely normal for a computer to be carried with one hand while just 40 years ago a computer infinitely slower was the size of a room this has been made possible through the miniaturization of the world of microprocessors for example transistors the switches that enable all modern computing have reduced drastically in the
briefest amount of time from roughly 250 nanometers in size in the year 2000 to just a single nanometer in 2016. this revolution and transistor size may soon enable the memory for an entire computer to be stored in a single tiny chip increasingly faster systems have also been made possible using nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions that can quickly and effectively save data during a system shutdown it's expected that using magnetic ram or random access memory with these nanoscale junctions computers will soon be able to boot almost instantly flexible bendable foldable and stretchable electronics have been developed using
semiconductor nanomembranes they're monocrystalline structures with thicknesses of less than a few hundred nanometers in normal terms they're really small and super bendy they're particularly useful for applications in smartphones and wearable technology like smartwatches nanotechnology is a definite answer to a digital world that is focused on becoming smaller and more efficient but it can also help us start to clean up some of the world's bigger and more pressing problems there are many applications for detecting and cleaning up environmental contaminants it is anticipated that nanotechnology could contribute significantly to environmental and climate protection by saving raw materials
energy and water and reducing greenhouse gases and hazardous waste from increasing the durability of materials that they last longer and reduce waste to the creation of insulation materials that improve the efficiency of paper towels allowing them to absorb 20 times its own weight nanotechnology really has the potential to do great things for the conservation of our planet and the human race the availability of fresh clean drinking water is an increasingly pressing issue that can be linked back to population growth urban mitigation pollution and the vast effects of events associated with climate change nanotechnology holds the
power and promise to not only detect pollutants but to filtrate and purify the magnetic interactions between ultra-small specks of dust can remove arsenic this is incredible given that it is naturally present at high levels in the groundwater in a number of countries similarly the development of nanoparticles that can purify water pollutants which cost less than the process of pumping it out of the ground for treatment also holds a great promise basically getting clean water is a huge problem and nanotechnology can help solve it this all sounds almost too good to be true there have to
be downsides to the seemingly endless potential of nanotechnology for the environment actually quantifying and confirming the effects of a product on the environment both positive and negative is achieved by examining the entire life cycle from production of the raw material to disposal at the end of its life cycle there is a genuine concern that nanotechnology will further increase energy and environmental costs given that the production of the nanomaterials themselves takes a large amount of energy water and environmentally problematic chemicals such as solvents in order to produce things that will help the environment we have to
use things that will harm the environment scientists are on the verge of new frontiers all the time nanotechnology is an act of exploration and we're very much still in the early stages but we're closer than you might think to this actual goal the idea of subatomic disease fighting machines have been in science fiction for decades so this idea is not really a new one but we've definitely come a lot closer to making this idea a reality in the past decade it sounds like a near perfect solution to many modern medical problems but let's just explore
how and where science fiction meets fact and what challenges may lie ahead nanotechnology is already heavily incorporated into medical tools knowledge and therapies already widely in use nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology in medicine it's used for disease prevention diagnosis and treatment nanoparticles can encapsulate or otherwise help to deliver medication directly to cancer cells and minimize the risk of damage to healthy tissue this could ultimately change the way cancer is currently treated and dramatically reduce the toxic effects of chemotherapy suffice to say researchers are working on it the increased capabilities of imaging and diagnostic tools
enabled by nanotechnology are also paving the way for increased success rates for many different therapies quantum dots are tiny semiconductor particles just a few nanometers in size sometimes referred to as artificial atoms due to their ability to behave like naturally occurring atoms or molecules because of those quantum phenomena i mentioned earlier quantum dots have optical and electric properties that differ from larger particles as a result they have many applications and are widely used in various sectors however creating quantum dots is an extremely expensive process which generates a huge amount of waste and we find ourselves
revisiting those environmental concerns amazingly though scientists have recently developed a low-cost method to make these quantum dots using some chemicals and green leaf extracts tea leaves the procedure is economical and the by-products are non-toxic the results are genuinely amazing with heaps of potential the research proves that the quantum dots created with tea leaves can penetrate the skin and reduce the growth of cancer cells by about 80 percent so not a cure but a huge leap forward in progress that doesn't come with the environmental payoff it's not just how we face the big diseases that nanomedicine
can transform researchers are now exploring ways to grow complex tissues with the goal of one day growing human organs for transplant nanotechnology can also improve the way vaccines are delivered and how successful they are including vaccine delivery without the use of needles still a work in progress though an amazing feat once achieved but the emerging era in nanomedicine really is the era of the nanobot nanorobots are building tiny packages that can complete tasks in an automated way they hold the ability to sense respond detect friend or foe within the body and deliver payloads and cargo
all at the nanoscale why do we need them well conventional water soluble drugs are far from perfect and present difficulties in treatment however diagnostic nano machines allow doctors to monitor the internal chemistry of the body's organs providing direct access to diseased areas nanobots can also be equipped with wireless transmitters so that doctors can change the treatment method to respond specifically to the state of the medical condition they also hold the potential to completely replace pacemakers by treating the heart's cell directly research regarding nanobots and medicine offers several opportunities such as artificial antibodies artificial white and
red blood cells and antiviral nanobots they are super durable and could theoretically operate for years without any damage nanobots in fact hold the potential to address many health problems besides cancer such as unblocking blood vessels in hard to reach areas taking biopsies or measuring the level of certain chemicals in otherwise inaccessible areas of the body so we are much much closer than you might have thought in the field of medical nanorobotics holds considerable promise for advancing medical progress but the phrase so close yet so far comes to mind because there are many challenges and roadblocks
to face before surgical nanobots will reach clinical trials a few months ago i made a video on neurolink and they're facing the same exact issues we mentioned here scientists have numerous challenges to overcome before the potential of nanobots and medicine can truly be realized getting the boss to travel safely where we want them to in the body and actually having them stay there long enough to carry out a procedure is incredibly difficult scientists also have yet to work out how to keep the nanobots from being destroyed and expelled from the body like any other toxic
or foreign bodies so while nanobots hold the key to an infinitely less toxic solution to treating cancer the challenges in getting the solution to the stage of becoming a viable treatment are still a bit in the future we're not quite there yet however if past progress has anything to go by i don't think we're so far off [Music] nanotechnology sounds like a solid solution to many modern medical and technological issues it makes you wonder how prominent they'll be in daily life in the future if you're interested in nanotechnology and want to learn more about it
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machines at that scale brilliant has courses that cover almost any science related interest you have it's definitely worth looking into they show you what you're learning and provide visual examples to solidify your understanding i find this a lot easier than learning through actual books or videos on youtube as each course is tailored to making things simple to understand with over 60 courses and new ones being added constantly you are guaranteed to learn something new if this sounds fun and you're interested head to brilliant.org aperture for a free trial the first 200 of you to check
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