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More hype than hope?

Nanotechnology and Stem Cell research .. two areas that promise to change life as we know it. One would give us entirely new materials, chemicals .. something never seen before .. maybe as light as a plastic with strength more than steel, more tensile, inert and biodegradable to boot. Or maybe teeny-tiny vaccum-cleaners that eat up all the dirt and also generate power from it. Or whatever. The other tells us it would be the source of the cure to all illnesses, allowing ad-hoc growth of body-parts and such. While both are very promising areas, me thinks both have been hyped up a lot by the media.

Nanotechnology does have current applications but even they are limited right now, and are nowhere close to what we have been dreaming about [along the lines of Michael Crichton's Prey]. Chinmay may be able to tells us more about this.

Stem-cell research also has a lot of potential, but cures are far away. The hype by supporters may make it seem that a cure for say .. diabetes is just around the corner. Embryonic stem cell research (the one most likely to yeild results) is still lagging and we are yet to understand a lot about the functioning of stem cells. Current applications include mostly bone marrow stem cells, and recently, cord blood stem cells.

Any technology needs to be given time, much more so at the magnitude we are dreaming about. My point is that both the abovementioned technologies have been hyped up too much. Maybe because right now, the media did'nt get much to hype about, or maybe because its a trend now .. the media dictates what the public thinks .. we just lap it all up. Don't we?