X-Message-Number: 14031
From: "BlackShark" <>
Subject: the nanobots are coming!
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:06:33 -0600

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Clear Dayjust came across this...

David K.


From BBC News,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_811000/811314.stm
-
Thursday, 29 June, 2000, 18:00 GMT 19:00 UK

Tiny robots flex their plastic muscles

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse
Miniscule submersible robots may soon cruise through your bloodstream
looking for misbehaving cells or even man the production lines of miniature
factories.

Swedish researchers have made crude micro-robots that are shorter than this
hyphen - and no wider than the full stop at the end of this sentence.

Unlike many previous designs, the robots can function in different kinds of
liquid, such as blood, urine, and the media used to culture cells. This
could make them very useful to biotechnologists.

"Being able to manipulate many individual cells at the same time is becoming
increasingly important in many areas of science," says Edwin Jager, of
Sweden's Link pings Universitet, lead author of a paper on the robots which
appears in the journal Science.

"We think that these micro-robots would be helpful for fundamental studies,
or for manufacturing other small devices, especially if we set up arrays of
them."

Shrink and swell

The Swedish team speculate that the robots' miniature hands might someday
pick up single cells or bacteria and transfer them to analysis stations.

The micro-robots have a silicon framework encased in layers of gold and a
conducting polymer, such as polypyrrole.

A micro-robot shifts a bead to different tracks

The polymer can be forced to shrink and swell by subjecting it to spurts of
positive and negative ions. This makes segments of the robot bend.
And by carefully controlling which particular segements bend and when, the
researchers can simulate the action in their robots of elbows, wrists,
hands, and even fingers.

Previous micro-robots have included electronic devices featuring rods and
levers, artificial wings and legs. But, "none of these operate in water, and
would not be suitable for the manipulation of cells," Jager says.

'Factory workers'

Submerged in an electrolyte solution, several robots were wired to an
electrical source and videotaped as they hoisted glass beads.

By stimulating the micro-robots' fingers, wrists and elbows, the researchers
made their mini-machines move the beads a distance 0.25 millimetres (0.01
inches).

The robots also managed to transfer the beads from one miniature conveyor
belt or "track" to another, proving their potential as tiny factory workers.

The scientists say that if treated with adhesion molecules, the robot's
fingers might select particular cells or bacteria from a sample.

The micro-robots could be positioned at the end of a catheter to assist
surgical procedures.

--
    
Don't take your organs to heaven.........heaven knows we need them here!





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