/sci/ - Science & Math

With a rise in medical research that doesn't seem to stop anytime soon, it is highly possible and already being predicted by futurists that in the next 20 or 30 years, mankind will be able to live much longer than normal, possibly even to the point of being nearly immortal.

My question for /sci/ is, if you had the chance to become immortal or close to immortal...either through nanotechnology or some not yet invented tech...would you do it? Why? Why not?

Majoring in biomedical engineering. My end goal is making nanobots with the ability to extend life, heal wounds faster, give us powers such as strength and speed, maybe go as far as to allow us to fire bend, water bend, air bend, and earth bend.

Is this possible to do with nanobots? Any ideas on how I could get started on this?

What exactly is biomedical engineering? I'm torn between this and [chemical and biomolecular] engineering.

Right now I'm basically looking at three colleges: Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and a state (UMD, College Park). Lots of people have told me to stick with the state college for undergrad, mostly because it's dirt cheap compared to the other options. College Park, however, does not have a BME major.

I fully intend to go to graduate school. I think nanotechnology is a neat field to get into, which is why I'm thinking of BME (I considered doctor too, before I decided on engineering); however I don't want to limit my options by picking a less broad field of study. Oil refining, pharmaceuticals; I'd have a great time doing anything like that too.

Advice as to which school to pick and/or information about BME courses are greatly appreciated. It'd be nice if we could keep the engineering-candyass comments to a minimum, too. I'm not looking for a huge drawn-out analysis, just some helpful tips from experience.

I'm on the fence about nanobots. On the one hand, there's a lot of challenges involved in developing nanotechnology; the scaling of technology is immensely problematic. Creating a remote-controllable robot the size of a blood cell that can monitor its environment, send back data, and perform multiple operations is a feat well beyond us currently; mass-producing them is well beyond even that.

On the other hand, difficulties in developing technology does not mean it's impossible. Cells prove that tiny machines are possible, and we've continuously shown that we can do in a matter of years what nature took eons to do, or could never do, on a far grander scale.

So, /sci/, what's your opinion on nanobots