Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: bane@mimsy.UUCP (John R. Bane) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: grey goo, active shields, and the world a century hence Message-ID: Date: 3 Jul 89 23:54:31 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 29 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , josh@aramis.rutgers.edu writes: > > "I can imagine a "black goo" that ate tire rubber and used the mechanical > energy of the periodic compressions as the tires roll. It could easily > spread by falling off and lying around on road surfaces to wait for the > next car." > --from an addendum I tacked onto a message last January. > > Suppose someone invented a nanobug to devour the millions of tons of > used tires that form an increasing disposal problem in this country. > Now suppose the bug were a little more capable than we thought, and > was able to live in the "wild" and flourish on tires still on the > cars. > I don't have a reference handy, but I remember reading that bacteria that eat tire rubber exist in the wild already. Their existance was first deduced by scientists who noted the abscence of piles of tire dust on the sides of the highways. Cars in the US go about 10K miles a year, and their tires last about 50K miles; this means each car deposits about 4/5 of the tread of one tire on the roads each year. If nothing could break this stuff down in a reasonable amount of time, the roads would be thick with it real fast. As it turns out, something does break it down; there are bacteria that live on tire dust. Anybody with a Science News index near their workstation want to look this up? Maybe evolution isn't as slow as we've been assuming... ;-) -- ARPAnet: bane@mimsy.umd.edu UUCP:...umcp-cs!bane