Nanotech's near-term payoff is energy and medicine

Nanotech has a branding problem — people imagine grey-goo nanobots. The reality is less cinematic and more useful: nanostructured electrodes for batteries, targeted drug delivery, water filtration, better solar. I work on the battery side and we're squeezing real gains out of nanostructuring right now. The "tiny machines repairing your cells" future is real but distant. The boring nanotech is already in your phone and will be in your medicine within years.