Cornell Nanohelicopters Achieve 8rps

Logic Bomb points to "[a] New York Times article [free reg req] detailing this rather incredible bit of technological progress. From the article: 'This is the first true nano machine,' said Dr. Carlo D. Montemagno, professor of biological engineering at Cornell and senior author of the Science paper.' Nuff said." Well, perhaps not -- surely it's not the first tiny mechanical device. Stuff That Matters links to this brief ZDNet coverage of the same thing, a bit more breathless.

Comments

Re:Nano or just MEMS?

[tesserae]

The article in Science describes the propellors as being 750 to 1400 nanometers in length, with shafts 150 nm in diameter. In other words, they're microscale, not nanoscale.

The ATP-fueled motors, of course, are just F1-ATPase enzyme, straight from bacteria... and the enzyme is indeed nanoscale, at ~8 nm diameter and 14 nm length. But Montemagno didn't build it, just co-opted it.

(The article linked will probably require a paid subscription... sorry 'bout that)

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