Janus Particles as Body Submarines?

Roland Piquepaille writes "Janus particles, which take their name from a Roman god with two faces, are microscopic 'two-faced' spheres whose halves are physically or chemically different. Now, U.S. researchers have shown that some of these Janus microparticles can move like stealthy submarines when an alternating electrical field is applied to liquid surrounding them. This could lead to new kinds of self-propelling microsensors or means of targeted drug delivery."

Comments

Re:Medical use?!

[pimpimpim]

Indeed, or the scheme to do the steering of such microamp fields through your body would be so damned complicated that developing this system would be either impossible or overly expensive. And at that point you still haven't thought of a decent take-up mechanism. As I said before, I am ok with Roland Piquepaille giving a shot on popular science articles, but please add some well-thought-through criticism to the PR shit that comes from universities. "Submarine" in-body medicine has been a dream since Asimov wrote about it, but please stop the unreasonable extrapolations from any nano-particle to a submarine that can save us from cancer LOL OMG!

In the mean time that these people are looking for a problem that fits their solution, a lot of REAL scientific innovation has been going on, e.g. microsensorics and subcutaneous pumps to help diabetes patients in a life-improving way.