Hacking humans with nanotechnology may sound like a concept from a futuristic science fiction novel or movie, but the truth is, it’s not that far off and it could be the next big cyberthreat. If you thought data breaches involving your social security number or credit card information were scary, imagine the ramifications nanotechnology hacking.
What is Nanotechnology & Hacking Humans with Nanotechnology?
Technically speaking, nanotechnology is any technological endeavor that deals with anything with a dimension of less than 100 nanometers. That is very small. For comparison, there are 25,400,000 nanometers in just one inch. Much of this scientific and technological field focuses on working with atoms. While the concept was first brought to light in the late 1950s, it wasn’t until the late 1980s that technology advanced enough to actually allow scientists to work in such a small field.
Nanotechnology has several applications. Food, technology, fuels, batteries, environmental causes, chemical sensors and even sporting goods have already benefited from nanotechnology, and will benefit even more in the future. However, the medical field is one of the most exciting for nanotechnology at the moment, though most developments are still in the experimental phase. With these developments comes the ever-present technological risk of hacking.
How is Nanotechnology Used in Humans?
In the future, nanotechnology will be used for incredible purposes. One possibility still being researched is building new muscle with carbon nanotubes. Scientists at IBM are also working on using nanotechnology to analyze DNA in just minutes (instead of weeks) to treat cancer patients with a customized treatment plan. Other medical technology experts are exploring using nanotechnology to send treatments like chemotherapy or vaccines to target specific types of cells in the body. Experimental nanosponges are being tested to absorb toxins in the body, and there are several different nanotechnology projects in experimental phases that seek to hyper target treatment to cancer cells. It is also being explored as an early diagnostic tool to detect cancers and infectious diseases long before our current technology is able. Some nanotechnology ideas include a tiny device that gets injected into the body as a sensor or medical delivery device. This all sounds positive, but there is a downside too.
Is Medical Technology Secure?
Now that we are entering a new era of medical nanotechnology, scientists need to make sure treatments are not only effective, but secure. Many experimental treatments are, after all, electronic medical devices, just on a smaller scale. These tiny devices are typically controlled by a program on a traditional electronic device like a computer, smartphone or server, meaning they could be very hackable. Some digital security experts posit that a single nanoparticle in the body with it’s own processor could be hacked, but they also say that if someone had more than one particle in the body, which many treatments would require, a hacker could theoretically turn them into a network in the body, using the body’s own systems to communicate and do their bidding.
Image Credit: © Alias Studio Sydney/ Envato
News This Week
X Marks the Spot: AI’s Treasure Maps Lead to Early Disease Detection
Medical diagnostics expert, doctor’s assistant, and cartographer are all fair titles for an artificial intelligence model developed by researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Their new model accurately identifies tumors [...]
Scientists Discover Method To Identify Alzheimer’s Disease Before It Progresses to Dementia
Researchers at Aarhus University have discovered a method to identify Alzheimer’s disease before it progresses to dementia, potentially opening up new avenues for treatment. A groundbreaking study could pave the way for early detection [...]
Startling Discovery: COVID-19 Virus Can Stay in the Body More Than a Year After Infection
The COVID-19 virus can persist in the blood and tissue of patients for more than a year after the acute phase of the illness has ended, according to new research from UC San Francisco that offers potential [...]
New bioengineered protein design shows promise in fighting COVID-19
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists have been racing to develop effective treatments and preventatives against the virus. A recent scientific breakthrough has emerged from the work of researchers aiming to combat [...]
Sugar-coated gold nanoparticles can quickly eliminate bacterial infections, no antibiotics required
If left to their own devices, bacteria on our teeth or wounded skin can encase themselves in a slimy scaffolding, turning into what is called biofilm. These bacteria wreak havoc on our tissue and, [...]
Liquid Lightning: Nanotechnology Unlocks New Energy
EPFL researchers have discovered that nanoscale devices harnessing the hydroelectric effect can harvest electricity from the evaporation of fluids with higher ion concentrations than purified water, revealing a vast untapped energy potential. Evaporation is a natural [...]
Unmasking the Illusion: AI-Generated Faces Challenge Perceptions
Research shows survey participants duped by AI-generated images nearly 40 percent of the time. If you recently had trouble figuring out if an image of a person is real or generated through artificial intelligence [...]
New Discovery Reveals How Cells Defend Themselves During Stressful Situations
Stress granules play a crucial role in the stress response, arising from the aggregation of non-translating mRNAs and proteins. Although significant knowledge exists about stress granules, the mechanisms behind their mRNA localization remain partially [...]
Scientists use a new type of nanoparticle that can both deliver vaccines and act as an adjuvant
Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system's response [...]
Not Science Fiction: How Optical Neural Networks Are Revolutionizing AI
A novel architecture for optical neural networks utilizes wavefront shaping to precisely manipulate the travel of ultrashort pulses through multimode fibers, enabling nonlinear optical computation. Present-day artificial intelligence systems rely on billions of adjustable [...]
Turning skin cells into limb cells sets the stage for regenerative therapy
In a collaborative study, researchers from Kyushu University and Harvard Medical School have identified proteins that can turn or “reprogram” fibroblasts — the most commonly found cells in skin and connective tissue — into [...]
AI reveals prostate cancer is not just one disease
Artificial Intelligence has helped scientists reveal a new form of aggressive prostate cancer, which could revolutionise how the disease is diagnosed and treated in the future. A Cancer Research UK-funded study, published in Cell Genomics, has revealed [...]
New Study Finds That Persistent COVID-19 Infections Are Surprisingly Common
Recent research conducted by the University of Oxford has found that a high proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections in the general population lead to persistent infections lasting a month or more. The findings have been published in the journal Nature. [...]
Innovative nanosheet method revolutionizes brain imaging for multi-scale and long-term studies
The human brain has billions of neurons. Working together, they enable higher-order brain functions such as cognition and complex behaviors. To study these higher-order brain functions, it is important to understand how neural activity [...]
Scientists Have Discovered a Potential Universal Antivenom
Scientists at Scripps Research identified antibodies that protect against a host of lethal snake venoms. Scripps Research scientists have developed an antibody that can block the effects of lethal toxins in the venoms of [...]
Scientists discover the human brain is even more powerful than we thought
The human brain could be far more powerful than we ever imagined, scientists have discovered. Researchers have identified cell messaging which have never been uncovered before, which suggests our brains are capable of more than previously realised. It’s [...]
Leave A Comment