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From: DAVSMITH@A.ISI.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Nano-Engineering
Message-ID: <[A.ISI.EDU]16-Jun-87.09:10:21.DAVSMITH>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 09:10:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: <[A.ISI.EDU]16-Jun-87.09:10:21.DAVSMITH>
Posted: Tue Jun 16 09:10:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jun-87 01:05:58 EDT
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The recent discussion of the $6M man reminded me of an oddity
which someone out there in Net-land might be able to clarify.  Early
one morning on NPR (National Public Radio) I was surprised to hear
a feature from someone at the MIT  AI Lab entitled Nano-Engineering.

I hasten to add that it was several months ago, but _not_ on April 1st,
although the following synopsis may lead you to believe such.  The
general thesis was a genetic engineering exercise whereby a little genetic
robot would be created to "assemble" genes.  The really intersting
part was the observation that since these things would naturally be 
very small, their first assignment would be to assemble clones of themselves.

Recall that I said this was early in the morning,  but I did check
with another NPR fan in our office who also heard the same feature.

Can anyone confirm (a) that this was perpetrated and (b) that
it came from MIT?

David Smith - DAVSMITH@A.ISI.EDU