Source: http://www.artofthecell.com/blog
It’s one of the great misconceptions, that nanotech will be “machines” as we know them now. Â Most likely they will be assembled by clever tricks of chemistry and conscripted biological processes. Â That’s not to say that individually assembled mechanical machines are out entirely, but when you are working at a near-molecular level, it will be much more efficient to co-opt existing processes rather than reinventing them.
Courtesy: LL Townley Ceramic
This article popped up on #i09  the other day and the takes I saw floating around the intarwebs in response collectively focused on the idea that we could now engineer MORE CAFFEINATED coffee.  Which, I will admit, is kind of awesome.  The takeaway for me (after drilling back to the source) is that the study was intended to examine the convergent evolution of caffeine in different plants.
Convergent evolution (two traits evolving separately in two completely unrelated species) Â suggests that CAFFEINE IS SO AWESOME that it evolved more than once.
