nanobots
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Algae-based nanobots could diagnose you from the inside
Nanobots promise a breakthrough in medicine by letting doctors study and treat you without invasive surgery or relatively ineffective drugs. But they face a couple of key problems: it's not easy to steer them to where they're needed, and getting rid of them is difficult when they're finished. Researchers might have a solution: make them out of natural materials that are guaranteed to break down. They've crafted nanobots (not pictured) using the sort of spirulina algae you can find in health food stores. The natural composition not only lets them biodegrade gracefully, but makes them relatively easy to control and track.
Nanobots can swim your bloodstream faster by doing the front crawl
With invasive surgery sometimes being a literal pain in the ass, it's no surprise that scientists are working tirelessly to minimize the need for such procedures. Now, however, China's Harbin Institute of Techonology is hoping to bypass fiddly surgery completely, thanks to its new tiny, swimming robots. Inspired by the fastest human method of swimming, the front crawl, these nanobots travel in a similar fashion, with their magnetic arms rotating and propelling them forward as the researchers apply a magnetic field to the bot's arms. This cleverly designed bot is pretty swift too, able to swim the front crawl at an impressive 10 micrometers per second. Thanks to its hefty arms and impressive speed, the bots have a momentum strong enough that they can even pass through thick liquids like blood in order to administer medicine from inside your veins.
Microscopic 'fish' could clean toxins from your bloodstream
Scientists are forever keen to get tiny robots working inside our bodies, despite pop culture warning us against the idea. Researchers from UC San Diego have joined the fray with a new idea: "microfish" robots that could one day "swim" through your bloodstream and cleanse toxins. The team devised a 3D-printing method called "microscale continuous optical printing," that let them create hundreds of fish-shaped bots thinner than a hair in just a few seconds. The printer is capable of creating custom shapes and adding nanoparticles that perform different functions, thanks to millions of micromirrors that project UV light onto photosensitive materials.
Swimming nanobots target cancer cells inside your body
Scientists keep saying they'll put tiny robots into our bodies to cure disease, perhaps not realizing we may not be down with that. But the field is progressing rapidly, and researchers at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) have now found an artful way to propel such 'bots. They created a "nanoswimmer" the width of a silk fiber, made of several links of polymer and magnetic nanowires. After introducing it into a blood-like fluid, they applied an external oscillating magnetic field, propelling the nanobot the length of its body in a second.
Scientists successfully implant self-destructing nanobots into live mice
We've seen nanobots do some neat stuff so far (aquatic dance routines immediately come to mind), but them administering drugs inside a living organism's been the stuff of scientists' dreams. Researchers at the University of California San Diego, however, recently made it a reality by successfully administering acid-powered, zinc-based, self-destructing micromotors inside living mice. The ultra-tiny 'bots measured in at 20 micrometers long, roughly a human hair's width, and are tough enough to survive the harsh gastrointestinal environment autonomously. What's more, they destroy themselves without leaving any traces of harmful chemicals behind and being self-propelled apparently was a factor in "greatly improved" tissue penetration and drug retention. As the BBC points out, this would make them great for treating maladies like peptic ulcers and other stomach disorders.
Researchers working on nanobots that directly attack tumors to cure cancer
For all the advancements we've made with technology and medicine, a cure for cancer still eludes us. But maybe that's because we haven't enlisted nanoparticles to attack tumors just yet. New research from the University of California's Davis Cancer Center, spotted by PhysOrg, suggest that could be a reality sometime soon. By attaching a tumor-recognition module to a nanorobot, doctors would be able to both diagnose a cancerous growth and inject drugs directly into the carcinoma. This would effectively target only the malignant cells and leave the surrounding areas unharmed -- taking things a few steps further than, say, the nanodiamonds we've heard of. It's a stark contrast to how chemotherapy treatment typically works, too, which is a blanket attack on all of a certain type of cell that often inflicts as much collateral damage as it does good. Who knows, a world where cancer patients don't have their hair or bone marrow destroyed during treatment might not be too far off after all. [Image credit: Shutterstock / StockLite]
Nanobots get tiny propellers for targeted drug delivery
Nanobots need the proper propulsion system if they're going to be used to deliver drugs to targeted areas. Take for example this teeny-tiny corkscrew-shaped propeller made out of silica and nickel that's developed by a group of German and Israeli scientists. The team says it's around 100 times smaller than the diameter of a red blood cell at 70 nanometers in width and 400 nanometers in length, so it can swim through blood and other fluids without getting caught in protein chains and the like. In order to make a nanopropeller this small, its creators had to forego giving it a motor of its own -- it needs to be controlled externally by a weak rotating magnetic field.
Georgia Tech models swimming, cargo-carrying nanobots
The nanobot war is escalating. Not content to let Penn State's nanospiders win the day, Georgia Tech has answered back with a noticeably less creepy blood-swimming robot model of its own, whose look is more that of a fish than any arachnid this time around. It still uses material changes to exert movement -- here exposing hydrogels to electricity, heat, light or magnetism -- but Georgia Tech's method steers the 10-micron trooper to its destination through far more innocuous-sounding flaps. Researchers' goals are still as benign as ever, with the goal either to deliver drugs or to build minuscule structures piece-by-piece. The catch is that rather important mention of a "model" from earlier: Georgia Tech only has a scientifically viable design to work from and needs someone to build it. Should someone step up, there's a world of potential from schools of tiny swimmers targeting exactly what ails us.
GhostX Ultimate offers classless gameplay with nanobots
If you've never heard of GameKiss, you're not alone. The company hopes to change that, though, and the first step toward raising its profile is a new MMO called GhostX Ultimate. GameKiss says that the title "delivers a stand-out gameplay experience for gamers with an appetite for a completely different kind of adventure," and that it's unique in "a sea of repetitively-themed MMORPG games." Bold claims, to be sure, but how exactly does GhostX come by its uniqueness? For one thing, there are no classes or jobs. Instead, players develop their own catalogue of nanobot weapons that can instantly change an avatar's combat abilities from melee to short- or long-range styles. GameKiss's latest press release also says that GhostX has a "real storyline," and you can learn more about that, and download the free-to-play title, at the official website.
Scientists develop blood swimming 'microspiders' to heal injuries, deliver drugs
Scientists at Penn State would like to release tiny spiders into your blood -- no, it's not the premise for a new horror movie, but rather, it's a medical breakthrough. The spider-like machines are less than a micrometer wide (just so you know, a red blood cell is around six to ten micrometers), and are designed to travel through veins delivering drugs and a little TLC to damaged areas -- not a totally new concept, per se, but even minor advancements can open up all sorts of new doors for troubled patients. Made of half gold, half silica, these microspiders are self-propelled by a molecule called the Grubbs catalyst, which scientists can control directionally using chemicals. Although still in the preliminary phases, lead researcher Ayusman Sen hopes to one day attach the creepy crawlers to nanobots, which could maneuver through the body to detect tumors, helping the immune system and scrubbing vessels clean of plaque. Not like that's doing anything to diffuse your arachnophobia, but hey...
Rise and Shiny recap: GhostX
There are quite a few side-scrolling action MMOs out there these days, so when I decided to take on yet another one, I thought that I might regret it. As soon as I downloaded GhostX and loaded it up, however, I knew I was in for a different experience than anything found in the other side-scrollers I have played in the past. First of all, GhostX is set in some kind of futuristic setting, complete with nanobots and strange mutant creatures. The look of the game is distinctively Anime, but the good kind. When I think Anime, I think incredibly bad creations like Naruto or Pokemon -- stuff that literally makes me cringe. GhostX is the kind that just looks like a toy, like you could reach through the screen and manipulate the characters and story yourself. Click past the cut to read more!
Nanosoccer at 2008 US RoboCup Open promises to be a real riot for the microscopic set
All your unicellular buddies are just going to love this. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is rallying a trio of student-built nanobot teams to compete at the world's most popular sport, which will be the second time nanosoccer has accompanied the RoboCup Open. The difference with this year's competition is that the public will be invited to watch. Of course, with a playing field the size of a grain of rice, a microscope will be used to show the crazy antics of the remote-controlled robots as they bat around nanoballs the diameter of a human hair. Sounds harmless, but just you wait: before you know it these little bots will start marrying Spice Girls and faking on-field injuries just like the pros.
