A group of scientists from Columbia University, managed to invent extremely small spider robots measuring about 4nm across. If you wish to compare, these nano robots are about 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
It would be interesting to note that the spider robots are made of DNA molecules. They can walk, turn right and left and create their own products. Developed at the molecular level, the robots represent DNA walkers, featuring legs to walk autonomously, though very slow, 30 meters in 1 hour.
In order to observe the spider robots scientists used atomic force microscopy. The molecular robots managed to attract a lot of attention due to the fact that they can be programmed to sense the environment and react accordingly. For example, they can detect disease markers on a cell surface, identify whether it is a cancerous one and then bring a compound to kill it, if necessary.
Researchers consider that their latest invention is an important step in molecular robotics. Although today this field cannot boast many great inventions, scientists and engineers believe that in the near future it could become one of the most important industries that could create devices for various medical applications.
Source: http://physicsinventions.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment