"Grey goo" is a term coined by Eric Drexler in his 1986 book about nanotechnology, Engines of Creation. In one section of the book, Drexler speculates about what could happen if we created self-reproducing "nanobots." If they got out of control, they could conceivably use the resources of the entire planet to replicate in an exponential manner akin to bacterial replication. Every living creature, every useful mineral, would be converted into more of the "gray goo."
Many scientists are concerned that developments in human technology may soon pose new, extinction-level risks to our species as a whole. Such dangers have been suggested from progress in AI, from developments in biotechnology and artificial life, from nanotechnology, and from possible extreme effects of anthropogenic climate change.
via Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
The team showed that if the polymer is broken or damaged, once the damaged parts are placed together and the healing process starts, electrical conductivity is almost completely restored within about 15 seconds.
Like it or not, science fiction is becoming science fact.
The Terminator was, of course, a work of fiction, but the idea of cyborgs and killer machines is not all that farfetched. In fact, the danger is becoming so real that the Obama Administration found the need to spell out explicit rules that specify under what circumstances machines are allowed to kill humans.
So who’s going to protect us from the real-life rise of the machines? Step forward a little-known body called the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER). CSER is based at the University of Cambridge, and is a multidisciplinary group of individuals – mainly scientists – whose mission, as defined on their website, is “the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction”.CSER was set up with funding from Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, which arguably makes him the real-life John Connor, making a lone stand against the real-life Skynets.
"The soft machine looks rather intelligent and [can] deform itself according to the space it voyages in – just like [the] Terminator does from the science-fiction film," Jing Liu from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China told The New Scientist.
Carbon3D said its "game-changing" process could make objects such as car parts, medical devices or shoes.
The technique was inspired by the film Terminator 2, in which the T-1000 robot rises from a pool of metallic liquid.