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World's Smallest Nanomotor Could Power Cell-Sized Nanobots For Drug Delivery

Zothecula (1870348) writes "Scientists at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas have built and tested what appears to be the world's smallest, fastest, and longest-running nanomotor yet – so small that it could fit inside a single cell. The advance could be used to power nanobots that would deliver specific drugs to individual living cells inside the human body."

8 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. I'm getting my order in today! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'll take a microgram of heroin please! If you could deliver it Friday, sometime after 4 pm, that'd be great. KTHXBYE

  2. quick read by Kurast · · Score: 5, Funny

    I read drug delivery, and thought: "The FBI will not like it".

  3. That's strange by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I released about 35 million nanomotors this morning before breakfast.

  4. Re:Oh gee... by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What humors me is the fact that you're supposedly going to have these wondrous tiny machines that can work at the cellular level, and you're just going to use them to deliver old-fashioned drugs? I guess medical science isn't imaginative enough to get past the existing way of doing things. It kind of reminds me when futurists used to imagine robots as humanoid devices, pulling levers and turning knobs--with it never occurring to them that it would be much more efficient to actually REPLACE the old levers and knobs altogether and let the machine be operated directly by computer.

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    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  5. Re:Riiiight by rossdee · · Score: 1

    Plenty of other things that fusion reactors could power (like the electric grid so we can cut way down on carbon emissions) and desalination plants for drought areas.
    And of course slower than light ships for travel within the solar system'''

  6. for all you hatin' on this press release: by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    nanomotors like these can be used to drive the world's smallest hurdy gurdy.

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    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  7. Re:Oh gee... by OzPeter · · Score: 1

    It kind of reminds me when futurists used to imagine robots as humanoid devices, pulling levers and turning knobs--with it never occurring to them that it would be much more efficient to actually REPLACE the old levers and knobs altogether and let the machine be operated directly by computer.

    Well if the robots have to co-exist with us, do we change our environment to suite them, or do we build them to suite our environment?

    For example, why are all the self driving cars actually cars? Surely there is a better form factor for schlepping around people and goods. But getting to that form factor would mean tearing down our current infrastructure. Its only after we replace all the manually driven cars that we can go to the next step and build an entirely new infrastructure to replace roads.

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  8. Kurzweil was right... by Lockdev · · Score: 1

    And so it begins.