Английский язык: Аннотирование и реферирование текста

290 aging car would be very hard to design, cost more to manufacture, and have more parts to break down. The situation is similar with nanotech- nology. Ralph Merkle of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center discussed this issue at the First Foresight Conference on Nanotechnology. He ex- plains, "It's both uneconomical and more difficult to design a self- replicating system that manufactures every part it needs from naturally occurring compounds. Bacteria do this, but in the process they have to synthesize all twenty amino acids and many other compounds, using elaborate enzyme systems tailored specifically for the purpose. For bac- teria facing a hostile world, the ability to adapt and respond to a chang- ing environment is worth almost any cost, for lacking this ability they would be wiped out. But in a factory setting, where adequate supplies of all the needed parts are provided, the ability to synthesize parts from scratch is not only unneeded, it consumes extra time and energy, and produces excess waste. Even if we could design artificial self-replicating systems as flexible as existing natural ones, an inflexible and rigid system is better adapted to the controlled factory setting in which it will find it- self than a more complex, more adaptable, less efficient design." What is more, the Desert Rose Industries scenario showed how an expandable factory setup could operate with no self-replicating ma- chines at all: molecular manufacturing doesn't require them. If they are used for some purpose, they will most likely resemble automobiles in their finicky requirements. A self-replicating molecular machine built for industrial purposes (and made as simple as possible) would float in a container of specially selected chemicals. As with the automobile, the best chemicals to use will probably be chemicals not commonly found in nature, and it would be easy to make that a design rule: Never make a replicator that can use an abundant natural compound as fuel . If we follow this rule, the idea of a replicator "escaping" and rep- licating in the wild will be as absurd as the notion of an automobile go-