Real Robots

Now you can buy robot vacuum cleaners, robot pets, robot pet-minders, and even fish-shaped robots (for your underwater archeological research), not to mention specialized robots for explosive ordnance disposal. Um, that last one is presumably disposable.

But wait, that's not all! Make sure you add bloodstream robots to your gift list this holiday season.

A microscopic swimming robot unveiled by Chinese scientists could eventually be used for drug delivery or to clear arteries in humans, say researchers.

The 3 millimetre-long triangular machine was constructed by Tao Mei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, and colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China.

The craft is propelled using an external magnetic field which controls its microscopic fins. The fins are made from an alloy that contracts in response to application of the field. Applying the field quickly makes the tiny submersible paddle forwards and gradually switching the field off slowly moves the fins back to their original position.

It is possible to control the speed of the craft by altering the resonant frequency of the magnetic field. The next stage is to build a robot with fins that respond to different magnetic field resonances. This would enable an operator to control the fin separately and steer the robot around.

Okay, at 3 mm, it's not quite small enough for your blood vessels yet, but that may not be far away...

So far the Chinese scientists have tested a swimming device measuring 3mm x 2mm x 0.4mm but are working a new model just 1 mm long.

"We would like to make a 0.1mm one that could go inside the bloodstream," Mei told New Scientist. "Maybe we can make it even smaller using nanotechnology."

Bloodstream nanobots. One more item that's quickly passing from science fiction into science fact.

16 DEC 04 UPDATE: Asimo has learned to run!

Comments

[Janessa Ravenwood]

The arguments of the "it can't be done" crowd look more ridiculous with each passing month at this point. Maybe that's why people like this are getting so antsy:

http://www.angelsagainstnanotech.blogspot.com/

WARNING: website of extreme nutjobs (from Howard Lovy).

[Mike Deering]

『トヨタ・パートナーロボット』の概要

当社は、人の活動をサポートする「トヨタ・パートナーロボット」の開発を進めており、このたび、その概要について発表しました。

[Jim Logajan]

Wake me when someone finally invents a robot capable of cleaning bathrooms. As designated bathroom cleaner at our house, I can tell you I'm definitely in the market. (Hey, if you can't build one to clean your bathroom, do you want one swimming around in your bloodstream?)

[Mr. Farlops]

Tidying a bathroom, or any room, is probably much harder to mechanize than cleaning a blood vessel. Think about it. Where do things get put away? What if it's a new thing that's bulky enough to force you to rearrange other things to put it away? Sure, it's boring but, do you think it's easy?

Anyone who has worked in machine vision and robot navigation will tell you it isn't.

Anyway--about the Angels Against Nano--it seems to me that these activists aren't going to be taken very seriously. Paranoia makes me think this group is tailored by the powers that be to discredit anyone who cricizes nano.

Serious or not, one needs only look at the failed GM food bans in Europe to realize they aren't going to stop this.

[John B]

After reading the site, it seems these protesters apparently have something similar to CRNano's point of view - "we don't know what Nanotech is, nor do we know what its final costs are, but it's coming and we have to get ready".

They differ with CRNano in that they seem to have a different tolerance for risk, but both are approaching the same problem: How do we get through the generation of nanotech?

They are also apparently more interested in the protest venue(s) (that being their apparent personal history, protesting GM foods) than the more scholarly or political venue(s), which are Mike & Chris' apparent histories (from what I've come across).

In some ways, they might make a very useful 'friendly foe' for CRNano, and vice versa.

-John