Soft Machines: nanotechnology and life , by Richard A.L. Jones, is at last published in the USA on October 31 by Oxford University Press. The book is aimed at the general reader, and it explains why things behave differently at the nanoscale to the way they behave at familiar human scales. The book argues that the design principles used by cell biology – the best example we have of a sophisticated working nanotechnology – are particularly well suited to the unfamiliar way physics works at the nanoscale, and that we should try to use the same principles in nanotechnology. Topics discussed include self-assembly in biological and non-biological systems, natural and synthetic molecular motors, molecular electronics and chemical computing.
