The New York Times has a relatively clear article on how nanotechnology, biotechnology, electronics, and brain research on converging into some new field for now called NBIC (for Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Science, and Cognitive science). Here is the site of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. Fascinating, but like a pretty woman strolling, fundamentally mysterious. Yet, you may want to file it, for a later look.

"The organizers believe that there are potentially large benefits to nanotechnology, which focuses on materials and processes with
dimensions so small they are affected by the behavior of individual atoms and molecules. But they say the greatest opportunities
lie in bridging the gaps between the rapidly growing ranks of nanoengineers and researchers in other fields — professionals who
often use such different terms to describe their work that their common interests go unnoticed.

For instance, nanotechnology researchers suspect that the natural world’s ability to assemble atoms into complex tissues with
very exact specifications may hold the key to making vast quantities of minute, inexpensive pollution sensors or solar cells.
Bioengineers, on the other hand, are looking to artificial nanostructures as possible drug delivery systems or as scaffolds to help
injured organs repair themselves."