Showing Spotlights 17 - 24 of 30 in category All (newest first):
While nanotechnology researchers have made great progress over the past few years in developing self-propelled nano objects, these tiny devices still fall far short of what their natural counterparts' performance. Today, artificial nanomotors lack the sophisticated functionality of biomotors and are limited to a very narrow range of environments and fuels. In another step towards realizing the vision of tiny vessels roaming around in human blood vessels working as surgical nanorobots, researchers have now demonstrated, for the first time, externally driven nanomotors that move in undiluted human blood.
Apr 17th, 2014
Not to be confused with the nanorobots of science fiction, for medical nanotechnology researchers a nanorobot, or nanobot, is a popular term for molecules with a unique property that enables them to be programmed to carry out a specific task. In what is the smallest 3D DNA origami box so far, researchers in Italy have now fabricated a nanorobot with a switchable flap that, when instructed with a freely defined molecular message, can perform a specifically programmed duty. Slightly larger nanocontainers with a controllable lid have already been demonstrated by others to be suitable for the delivery of drugs or molecular signals, but this new cylindrical nanobot has an innovative opening mechanism.
Apr 2nd, 2014
Advances in micro- and nanoscale engineering in the medical field have led to the development of various robotic designs that one day will allow a new level of minimally invasive medicine. These micro- and nanorobots will be able to reach a targeted area, provide treatments and therapies for a desired duration, measure the effects and, at the conclusion of the treatment, be removed or degrade without causing adverse effects. Ideally, all these tasks would be automated but they could also be performed under the direct supervision and control of an external user.
Nov 13th, 2013
The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests little insects. Its trapping mechanism consists of a series of tiny hairs at the crease where the plant's two leaves join. When a fly or spider walk across these hairs, touching two or more of them in succession, the two leaves will close quickly enough - within hundreds of milliseconds - to prevent its escape. Now, researchers have used it as inspiration for a new biomimetic robot made with artificial muscles. The device offers promise in the development of electrically stimulated artificial muscle that could be implanted in people to help overcome muscular disease or paralysis.
Mar 6th, 2012
Sophisticated molecular-size motors have evolved in nature, where they are used in virtually every important biological process. Some fascinating examples in nature are DNA and RNA polymerase, rotary motors such as ATP synthase, and flagella motors. In contrast, the development of synthetic nanomotors that mimic the function of these amazing natural systems and could be used in man-made nanodevices is in its infancy. Nevertheless, scientists are making good progress in achieving cargo transport by artificial nanomachines although often these advances are handicapped by several drawbacks. Researchers in Germany have now demonstrated the directed loading and transport of microobjects by high propulsion powered tubular microbots driven by a microbubble propulsion mechanism.
Aug 3rd, 2010
As the fields of bionanotechnologies develop, it will become possible one day to use biological nanodevices such as nanorobots for in situ and real-time in vivo diagnosis and therapeutic intervention of specific targets. A prerequisite for designing and constructing wireless biological nanorobots is the availability of an electrical source which can be made continuously available in the operational biological environment (i.e. the human body). Several possible sources - temperature displacement, kinetic energy derived from blood flow, and chemical energy released from biological motors inside the body - have been designed to provide the electrical sources that can reliably operate in body. Researchers now report the construction of a 980-nm laser-driven photovoltaic cell that can provide a sufficient power output even when covered by thick biological tissue layers.
Dec 11th, 2009
Future nanomanufacturing processes will rely on two basic principles: a combination of chemical synthesis and self-assembly on one hand and robotic nanofabrication on the other. While the former is a controlled 'natural' process relying on chemistry and self-organization principles of nature, the latter will be an industrial process similar in concept to today's automated manufacturing assembly lines. Robotic assembly lines in modern factories have come a long way since the early 20th century when Henry Ford first used an assembly line on an industrial scale for his Model T automobile. Nevertheless, the principle is the same. Rather than having a single craftsman or team of craftsmen create each part of a product individually and assemble them together into a single item, an assembly line is a (often completely automated) manufacturing process in which interchangeable parts are added to a product in a sequential manner to create a finished product. While sporadic automation of certain tasks has already begun (for instance, automated microrobotic injection of foreign materials into biological cells), nanotechnology techniques today are pretty much where the industrial world was before Ford's assembly line - a domain of highly skilled artisans and not of automated mass production. It has long been a dream for nanotechnologists that robots could one day be used in an assembly line type of process to manufacture nanodevices. Researchers are beginning to develop the first rudimentary nanomanipulation devices that could lead to future automated manufacturing systems. Now, a team of scientists in Canada have reported the first demonstration of closed-loop force-controlled grasping at the nanonewton level.
Apr 25th, 2008
In our Nanowerk Spotlights we usually stay with both feet firmly on the grounds of science and shy away from the science fiction and sensationalist aspects of nanotechnology. So today's headline might come as a surprise to you (but just to be safe we put a question mark in). Of course, there are no nanobots yet, and won't be for a while, but one of the fundamental problems to be solved for possible future molecular machinery is the challenge of controlling many molecule-sized machines simultaneously to perform a desired task. Simple nanoscale motors have been realized over the past few years but these are systems that do nothing more than generate physical motion of their components at a nanoscale level. To build a true nanorobot - a completely self-contained electronic, electric, or mechanical device to do such activities as manufacturing at the nanoscale - many breakthrough advances will need to be achieved. One of them is the issue of controlling large numbers of devices, i.e. how to build and program the 'brains' of these machines. Another issue is to separate the concept of science fiction style 'thinking' robots (artificial intelligence) from a more realistic (yet still distant) concept of machines that can be programmed to perform a limited task in a more or less autonomous way for a period of time. These tasks could range from fabricating nanoscale components to performing medical procedures inside the body. For nanoscale machinery this would require the availability of nanoscale control units, i.e. computers. Researchers in Japan are now reporting a self organizing 16-bit parallel processing molecular assembly that brings us a step closer to building such a nanoscale processor.
Mar 20th, 2008
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