Nanobots to the Rescue
For more than 15 years, Christine Peterson has argued that the science of the small is a big deal. Now she's writing a sequel to the seminal nanotech book Engines of Creation, authored by her husband and ongoing collaborator, Eric Drexler. In true "open source" tradition, Peterson - who coined the term - will post chapters ready for feedback at www.foresight.org/engines/outline this winter. As president of the Palo Alto-based Foresight Institute, she's become the main spokesperson for a vision of nanobots doing everything from killing cancer cells to cleaning up toxic waste. And she's a true believer: Peterson plans her life based on the as-yet-unrealized technology. She and Drexler don't save for retirement, trusting that their income will rise as the field matures. They don't have children, but Peterson, who's 43, says medical breakthroughs will let her give birth much later in life. Asked about the legacy she'd like to leave, she says, "I want to be remembered as someone who's not dead."
Guilt by Association
Karen Stephenson isn't your typical network expert. The anthropologist turned organizational analyst specializes in making human, not computer, connections. She runs the New York-based consulting firm NetForm, where she analyzes everything from corporate hierarchies for private industry to subversive cells for the US government. Her take: Networks that work, be they among ancient Egyptian merchants or modern guerrilla armies, share fundamental traits. "Networks are decentralized, but their internal connections aren't random," she explains. To flush out these links, Stephenson uses software derived from hundreds of case studies to find patterns surrounding a sequence of events. The patterns reveal a small but diversified set of critical nodes, which she calls "the network's DNA." Once located, nodes can be monitored or infiltrated - or, says Stephenson, "you can expunge the DNA in one move."
Riding Your BrainWaves
Phrenology never had it so good. The FDA recently approved the NeuroGraph, a stretchy, electrode-studded skullcap designed by cognitive neuroscientist Richard Granger. The cap reads electrical activity in the brain, then searches for features that correlate with neurological diseases - all in about 12 minutes. "Right now, testing for something like Alzheimer's is an expensive procedure," says Granger. In December, his company, Thuris, will test the NeuroGraph's ability to detect multiple sclerosis. Granger - who contracts with the Navy (which may use his headgear to monitor pilots and divers for fatigue) - likens finding the signature of a disease to identifying a submarine on sonar. "The brain uses electrical circuits, and we analyze the signals from those circuits," he says. "It's like The Hunt for Red October."
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