Carbon bits to revolutionize computer construction

Nanotubes are a hundred times stronger than steel, able to bend without breaking, and efficient at conducting electricity. But to see them you have to look into a powerful microscope. "Nano" means billionths of a meter, or a hundred-millionths of an inch. Nanotubes are the building blocks for a new computing paradigm. Harvard chemists hope they will create the next revolution in computer construction. Nanomachines could combine high computing power with extremely low electrical requirements. They might make possible a new realm of portable, wearable, or even implantable computers that aid in the detection and monitoring of diseases, says Charles Lieber, Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. They also might make it possible to carry all the information now in your office files on a gadget no bigger than a wristwatch.