The Dogs of Nano

I don't make this stuff up. Just reporting the facts, misplaced apostrophes and all ...

Nano Dogs the Movie (2009) Nanobots - /nan'oh-bots/ n. Robots of microscopic proportions. The future of computer science with astronomical potential. As of yet, only used experimentally. -Until Now! Nano-scientist Richard Spano has them, and his competitors will do anything to get them, but when his twelve-year old son, Matt, toys with a nano-solution, the family dogs ingest them and become the "talk" of the town. The nanos give them super abilities allowing them to speak and ultimately increasing their brainpower to telepathic levels. Matt tries to keep them a secret from everyone; until his next-door friends, Peg and Brandon, inadvertently find out and a couple of bumbling techno-spies steal one of the dogs, it's up to Matt and Peg to find his dog, Ozzy, before he becomes another casualty of the science lab. In the first film of it's kind, set in the science-fiction world of nanotechnology, "Nano Dogs the Movie" is a comedy caper-esque adventure that will be a journey of fun for the entire family! More here

Now, your NanoBot is working, so you don't have to, and some far-fetched claims need to be "checked out." If this little film does, indeed, make it to the big screen, it would not be the first of "it's" kind, or even its kind. Don't ask me why I remember this, but 1989's fantastic voyage into the nanorealm, "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" featured a dog named Quark.

But next year's small release does have one thing going for it. The writer involved, Michael David Murphy, apparently has a long rap sheet when it comes to making movies with mutts.

This Just In! We go now to Richard Jones in England, with some breaking news. Richard? Scooby Doo, nano too

(Sorry, my day job these days is in TV news)

Backgrounder
Government Created Killer NanoRobot Infection
Roxxi the Foxxi 'Bot has the cure -- Part II
Antediluvian NanoBots
'When Pants Attack'

Ruh-Roh, Ranobots!

While nanotech scientists and promoters continue to bark up the wrong tree over the as-yet nonexistent movie version of Michael Crichton's "Prey," the WB network has tossed them a new bone to pick.

Well, more like a snack. A Scooby snack.

A ... nanotech ... Scooby snack.

Yes, you read this correctly. Scooby-Doo has gone nano, and no amount of whining and begging from those engaged in non-cartoon nanotech can stop it.

It seems that Shaggy had a rich uncle, Albert Shaggleford, who disappeared: "Zoinks! We're like gaziillionaires Scoob!" Uncle Albert was also a genius who left the clueless Shaggy with some nanobots that, of course, get mixed in with his mutt's Scooby-snacks. Zany side-effects ensue, with Scooby given the ability "to fly or turn into a giant robot."

"Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" premiered Saturday, Sept. 23.

Now, let's see whether those meddling nanoscientists will start barking about the toon, or roll over and play dead.

Backgrounder
Cranky Crichton hasn't a Hollywood 'Prey'er
Nanobots 'Lost' in 'The Dark Tower'
Nanobots: The Wonder Years

Nanobots 'Lost' in 'The Dark Tower'

The makers of ABC's "Lost" have "laughed off the idea that the monster is just a cloud nanobot," according to news reports. Hmm. Sure looked like one to me (althought the only nanobot swarm I have ever "seen" was on the cover of Michael Crichton's "Prey").

Apparently, the writers of "Lost" also pen comic books. And, coming soon, Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series discovers there are other worlds than books and will appear in Marvel Comics.

The connection? I'm getting to it.

The plotline and characters in "Lost" are eerily similar to those in the "Dark Tower."

Backgrounder
Secret nanotech research 'Lost' in flight
'Lost' in nanobot space
From the Dark Tower of my memory

Nano submarine crew saves scientist's life!

A super-top secret military project, the Combined Miniature Deterrent Force, succeeded in sending a nanosize submarine crew into a top scientist's bloodstream. After battling anti-bodies and an evil doctor working for the "other side," the crew returned safely through the tear duct.

  

     
The crew, of course, brought along Raquel Welch.

What, Prey tell, are you talking about?

I know what they say about people who live in glass houses, and that's why I'm ordinarily reluctant to pick apart the work of other journalists, especially those who are forced by an editor to learn all there is about nanotechnology in one day so they can cover a speech by a visiting lecturer. I feel their pain. So, I hope this writer from the East Valley Tribune will forgive me, but this story perfectly illustrates a few issues I've been thinking about lately.

First of all, somebody on the copy desk should have caught this first sentence right out of the gate: "Nanotechnology is all about small objects — less than 100 microns ..." Yeah, that's correct. Also less than 100 parsecs, kilometers and light years. But if you want to be more precise, go smaller into the nanometer range. Hey, is that why they call it "nanotechnology?"

But that's not really what drew my attention. This did:

The reason these particles have so much potential is their size and the fact they don’t always follow conventional laws of physics.

"That’s a double-edged sword," said Michael Moffitt, vice president of environmental services for Western Technologies, a Phoenix consulting firm. Moffitt was speaking to a group at the Semiconductor Environmental, Safety Association convention in Scottsdale last week.

... Moffitt says nanotechnology poses a couple of challenges for the cleaning crews. The first is detecting and measuring the hazards. Not that much is known about how some of these particles might interact with living tissue. More here

It's difficult to say whether Moffitt got it wrong or the reporter misunderstood what he said. But this illustrates perfectly a discussion started by Richard Jones at Soft Machines, called The Quantum Bridge of Asses (Apparently, my friend Richard feels the need to compete with me when it comes to important search-engine words. I ran pictures of asses, so he needs to put the word in a headline).

In any case, I've interviewed some of the researchers working on the effect of nanoparticles on living cells, and quantum physics never comes into play. They're not checking to see whether the particle turns into a wave, or whether there's a dead cell in this universe and a live one in a different dimension or any of that craziness that even left Einstein scratching his head and muttering about God not playing dice. No, they're using old-fashioned techniques grounded in classical physics to see what happens when you let a dendrimer or a buckyball loose in your body.

An then, the story kicks me in the ... um ... tushie on the way out with this one:

Anyway "Prey" is going to be made into a movie. And Moffitt fears this will frame public debate.

I've heard these vague "Prey" movie references ever since the day the book came out. Over the past few years, I even assigned a couple of Tinseltown reporters to find out more about this "film." People who know people who know people say that there's no director and no cast, which means that everybody in the nano business can just calm down for a while. Your worst nightmare will not come true anytime soon. Unless somebody out there has more information on this, let's give the "movie version of 'Prey' is coming soon" stuff a rest.

Backgrounder
Goo-be-gone, but keep that cwazy quantum
Love in the Time of Crichton

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. Heisenberg

Forget Star Chemistry. How About the Film's? (New York Times, free subscription required)

When an online news publication is the kind that runs articles with headlines like "Disilyne at Last: Synthesis of a Silicon-Silicon Triple Bond Is Called a Milestone for Multiple-Bond Chemistry," you generally do not expect to find great concern in its pages for the finer points of moviemaking.

And in a conversation with an editor of such a publication, you do not expect to hear her say that she really enjoyed "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," partly because of its examination of scientific ethics but also because "I just love when the bad guy goes all squishy."

But then maybe you have not spent enough time recently with Chemical and Engineering News, the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society, which in addition to informing its readers about the latest developments in protein engineering and atomic-scale manipulation has now ventured into territory where the Heisenberg uncertainty principle really prevails: Hollywood.

This summer, the Web site version of the weekly (pubs.acs.org/cen) started publishing movie reviews that focus (although not exclusively) on the accuracy of the science, especially the chemistry, in the latest releases. More here (free subscription required)

NanoBot Backgrounder
... and I feel fine
More scifi nano to confuse the kids
Web-Slinging, Stepford Nano

Web-Slinging, Stepford Nano

Now that I'm a new dad again, I of course will not be going to see a movie for a little while. But, I've been told, popular cinema continues to weave the nano meme into our culture. This, of course, is my clever segue into "Spider-man 2," which Georgia Tech nano researcher Daniel Moore tells me contains more nanobabble as some sort of scientific explanation for a supervillain's supervillainous powers. I'll quote an excerpt from Moore's blog, but I'll wait until the neonanoluddites grab a pen to write this down and incorporate it in their next pseudoscientific diatribe against nanotechnology … Ready? OK:

Doc Ock's mechanical arms are attached to his brain using nanowires which are real enough. Of course, something goes wrong with them, proving, once again, that nanobelts are a far superior material to nanowires. I mean, really, how many scientists need to be turned into psychopaths for us to finally realize that nanobelts are better than nanowires? More here.

I love it. Hilarious. But, Dan, you realize that the next anti-nano nanoramous Googling up a storm and looking for information to prove an already solidified point on the horrors of nano is going to grab the phrase, "Something goes wrong, proving that … scientists need to be turned into psychopaths," and it will end up quoted in the next ETC Group report sent off to Prince Charles and Jim Hightower.

Oh, and my daughter tells me that "nanochips" are the science mumbo jumbo inside "The Stepford Wives" remake. I found this review:

The problem with this film is that it could have been an absolute masterpiece... if they'd managed to figure out how they wanted to do the robot/brainwashed women. If you're paying attention during the film you'll eventually realize that the filmmakers obviously couldn't decide whether or not to go with robots, or with some sort of nano-tech engineered chips being implanted in the womens brains. My guess is that the nano-tech chips were what they decided on after shooting too many scenes with robot oriented material. More here

More scifi nano to confuse the kids

Nanoscreenplay of the month, from FilmJerk.com. It's an "unedited draft" of "Deathlok," based on the Marvel Comics character, aiming for a 2006 release.

Luther Manning is a corporate trainer, married to a woman with a son from a previous marriage. After he gets a big promotion at work, they go out to celebrate. But the evening ends badly when they are involved in a bad car accident. Luther suffers horrible dreams and wakes in a hospital. He is discharged shortly, but isn't quite himself. He is having terrible pains, weird lumps form under his skin and his hearing seems to becoming hypersensitive. Frightened, he heads back to the hospital to see the doctor who treated him. The hospital has no idea who this doctor is and has no record of Luther being a patient. Paranoia quickly starts to set in with Luther.

What has happened is that the crash was no accident. A secret government agency deliberately crashed into Luther so that they could use him as a guinea pig in their nanotechnology experiments. The agency has been testing this project on volunteers from the military but wants to know what happens to a normal man. The nanotechnology basically starts to rebuild Luther from the inside out. He now has a computer wired into his brain, liquid metal armor that can appear when needed, greatly improved vision and hearing and the ability to generate weapons pretty much out of thin air. More here.

I can see what the National Nanotechnology Initiative is worried about. There are kids out there who will mistake this for a documentary and get the wrong idea about real nanotechnology.

Discuss