admin answers:

Lets adopt a broad definition of nanotechnology to include manufacturing process that control matter at the nanoscale, usually considered between 1 and 100 nanometers (A human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide).

Pharmaceutically speaking it is believed that nanobots are the way of the future, building microscopic robots (nanobots) that would be ingested or placed in the bloodstream that would be able to repair a human from the inside on a cellular level. It is believed that with time and through the use of nanobots that humans may even be able to become immortal! Imagine an army of robots fixing each individual cell of your body that is infected with cancer for instance.

On a tech level I know that flash memory, CPU processesors and the like are using nanotech. I have taken the liberty of placing a link to a site that has a list of hundreds of items available today that are using nanotech. Everything from cloth to paints, to computers.

The relationship to the two is the ability to put small numbers of atom and molecules where we want them, to form materials, structures and devices that benefit from such a high level of control and precision.

The link to livescience.com has pictures of nano sized machines. Pretty cool!