"Control? What's this, "Couric," you keep referring to?"
(Now before y'all yuck out, it's a motorcycle inner tube coated with Slime sealant)
Posted on 10/24/2006 8:14:41 PM PDT by annie laurie
A Chiang Mai University team has developed a motor so small it will power a microscopic robot on an expedition through human blood vessels.
Boffins at the university's science faculty describe their invention as a "nanomotor". It will drive a medical robot about the size of a blood cell on a tour of the maze of human veins and capillaries.
A "nanobot" - or nanotechnology robot - developed at Kent State University in Ohio, United States will be powered by a motor made of an extremely fine and pure ceramic created at Chiang Mai University.
In addition to powering the nanobot, the piezoceramic - also known as "smart ceramics" - motor will navigate the machine on its exploration for such things as tiny tumours in internal organs.
It is remote controlled by either low-voltage electric current or microwaves, explains head researcher Assoc Prof Supon Ananta.
Stimulated by electric current or microwaves, piezoceramics can be enlarged or shrunk by nano levels, propelling the nanobot forward, back, left or right - just like a submarine.
Supon has focused on ceramic studies since his undergraduate days 15 years ago. He is now armed with a master's degree in ceramic engineering and a doctorate in material science from the Leeds University in the United Kingdom.
Before Supon and his team came up with the smart-ceramics motor Kent State's nanobots were shy a power plant, he explained.
"Actually, they had some idea what were the ideal materials for a motor, yet the problem was they could not synthesise such an extremely pure material," Supon said.
The techniques he designed to synthesise smart ceramics have appeared in Materials Letters, the interdisciplinary journal of the Materials Research Society devoted to cutting-edge advances in the field of materials science and engineering.
Apart from nanobots, smart ceramics can also be used in other medical equipment - including ultrasound and scanning machines used to diagnose problems in the brain, spinal cord and heart, Supon said.
In ultrasound devices, for example, the main and most expensive component was made of smart ceramics, he said, adding that his synthesised smart-ceramic motor in an ultrasound machine cost Bt100,000 - cheap, compared with alternatives priced as high as Bt10 million.
Ping
Nanites!!!
I think I've had these before, but an explosive bowel movement sorta ruined whatever nefarious scheme the aliens had in mind.
My favorite scene is still the one where the crew gets to strip those swarming antibodies off Raquel Welch.
Thai Ping
Big questions : :
It sems these motors are not rotary at all .
They provide motorization - thru contraction & expansion .
A motor that was 1/64 of an inch in diameter was constructed as far back as 1969 !
The world's smallest functioning robot is MONSIEUR made, wouldn't you know it, Japan .
But it is just a simple phototropistic motorization .
The smallest true robots(have decision making abilities as well as tactile faculties) are the MIT 'Ants' .
The first true robot was 'Elmer' and Elsie invented by W. Grey Walter of Britain .
A better example of the first true 'bot would be 'Squee'
built by Berkeley in 1952 ?
They make a semi-remake of 'Fantastic Voyage' in 1987 with
DESTINATION: InnerSpace
That is wrong on so many levels!!
(Now before y'all yuck out, it's a motorcycle inner tube coated with Slime sealant)
If true, this is amazing. Chiang Mai used to be known primarily for the size of its opium crop.
Ping. What do you think of this?
You will be assimilated!
I too am surprised and impressed that such work is happening in Chiang Mai. Good for them.
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Thanks. Awesome! One more step out of third world status.
My mom has a friend there who's part of the anti-drug task force. HE has a veritable arsenal of firearms and took me shooting.
My ears still ring thinking about it. :)
A friend of mine wrote the original story. He disavowed any connection with the movie saying the human body posed enough of a danger without inserting a bad guy.
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