Read this link to Alcor's (cryonics) future scenario of resuscitation (notice the nanocomputer and nanomachine reference mentioned as cell repairing)
http://www.alcor.org/crft05.txt
Also, the Cryonics Institutes listing (nanotech mentioned here)
http://www.cryonics.org/refs.html
This next link is from Foresights page "Nano medicine" and discusses control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures.
http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/
And Charles Ostman's Nanobiology page (extropian also)
http://www.biota.org/ostman/nanobio.htm
Hope this helps you understand the future ramifications and benefits of nanotech's up and coming revolution!(in more way's than just medical)
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
E-mail
nanoWeb Page
http://www.nanoindustries.com
E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
Alternate girl@halcyon.com
"The science of nanotechnology, solutions for the future."
>From: Karsten Bänder <Karsten.Baender@ivm.de>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: <extropians@extropy.com>
>Subject: RE: Becoming Immortal? (was: The Promise of Cryonics (was
Re: ethical problem?))
>Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 14:57:57 +0200
>
>> One word: Nanotechnology
>
>Nanotechnology will help resolving a whole bunch of problems, but
might I
>suggest that we do not think of it as a magical artifact capable of
>fulfilling all our dreams?
>I do not think that nanotech alone would be able to solve the
problems of
>cell death and brain malfunction. Nanotech could not produce new
veins or
>blood cells nor would it be able to rejuvenate the old body cells.
Cells
>divide, and in the aging process, this becomes more and more slowly
until it
>eventually stops. How would Nanotech be able to alter this?
>
>>>> Well, this is indeed a very desirable future, yet, I think that
>>>> it is impossible to to become immortal in the classic way. The
>>>> human body cells - at least some of them - aren't made for
>>>> perpetual function. Life can be extended to an age of about 120
>>>> years, with the average lifespan ranging somewhere around the
>>>> nineties, but then, eventually, some important cells will
>>>> simply stop replicating. All you can do then is to hope that
>>>> they will still be working, though at a slowly decaying rate.
>