Daily News Channel
LORI CROWN THOUGHT she was doing the right thing last year when she moved to a dryer climate in Bakersfield, California, after being plagued by asthma attacks during her six years in Hawaii. A few months later, Crown, 35, was suffering from severe headaches, a prolonged fever of 102 degreesF, swollen feet and painful bumps on her hands and legs.
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.