Daily News Channel
Sister Hong’s brainwashing session began when her Bible class ended. Five peasant women had led the Catholic nun to a house in a distant village in Henan province two years ago so that she could teach the life of Jesus.
Technologist Eric Drexler envisioned a future in which machines far smaller than dust motes would construct everything from chairs to rocket engines, atom by atom; in which microscopic robots would heal human ills, cell by cell. Sixteen years after the publication of Drexler’s book Engines of Creation, the molecular-scale technologies most immediately available to consumers are somewhat less fantastic: stain-resistant khakis and more durable tennis balls.