Researchers Demonstrate Electrically Activated Micro-Muscles

mpicpp sends news of research at the University of Michigan in which a self-assembling chain of particles can be used as tiny, electrically-activated muscles. The team started with particles similar to those found in paint, with diameters of about a hundredth the width of a strand of hair. They stretched these particles into football shapes and coated one side of each football with gold. The gilded halves attracted one another in slightly salty water—ideally about half the salt concentration in the sports drink Powerade. The more salt in the water, the stronger the attraction. Left to their own devices, the particles formed short chains of overlapping pairs, averaging around 50 or 60 particles to a chain. When exposed to an alternating electric field, the chains seemed to add new particles indefinitely. But the real excitement was in the way that the chains stretched. ... While the force generated by the fibers is about 1,000 times weaker than human muscle tissue per unit area, it may be enough for microbots.

Comments

What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please give us some more articles on discrimination, misogyny, and politics. What is this, a tech site??

Re:What the hell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone mod this guy up. After a while, the endless "men are pigs" crap will just turn /. into an online scandal sheet. We're just about there now.

Not particularly useful

[popo]

The field of artificial muscles already has multiple competing technologies which are superior to this.

For one, the amount of force generated here is problematically low. Secondly, gold? That's going to be a problem for obvious reasons.

The future is in a combination of electroactive polymers and/or electro/thermally-activated shape-memory alloys -- both of which are cheap light and flexible.

Re:Not particularly useful

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Something with substantial gold content isn't going to cut it; but, unless they've markedly improved of late, shape-memory alloys are pretty brutal on your power budget. They seem downright magical in that they work at all; but you are basically talking a resistive heater that you need to dump current into until it warms up enough to change shape(and, obviously enough, bigger structures need more energy to increase their temperature, and achieving faster temperature increases requires higher currents, which is unhelpful if you are hoping to use a battery chemistry that dislikes high discharge rates or suffers from voltage droop under high discharge).

It's not clear that this is it; but artificial muscles are in a pretty sad state compared to their natural counterparts. It would make maintenance and refueling a bit more of a nuisance than just plugging in a battery charger; but with today's tech you might actually be better off with chunks of harvested or cultured muscle and swapping out their nutrient fluid from time to time...

Re:Not particularly useful

[jenningsthecat]

The field of artificial muscles already has multiple competing technologies which are superior to this.

Superior to this, for now. The techniques described may be refined to increase the strength-to-area ratio. The new technology described may also be superior with regard to granularity of control, repeatability/consistency of motion, power efficiency, or other factors not immediately evident.

Shelley was right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists just won't rest until Frankenstein's Monster is real.

Re:Shelley was right all along

[Adriax]

Screw the monster, I want my omnimech.

What the fuck summary?

[skovnymfe]

Really what the fuck summary? Hundredths of a hair width? Football shapes? Powerade-level saltiness? What the fuck is this I'm reading? Science for dummies?

Re:What the fuck summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well is it a soccer ball or American football? It's for dummies, and I'm still confused.

Re:What the fuck summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really what the fuck summary? Hundredths of a hair width? Football shapes? Powerade-level saltiness? What the fuck is this I'm reading? Science for dummies?

We dummies prefer the therm 'Slashdot'

Re:What the fuck summary?

[king neckbeard]

This is coming from a university with a big football team. That would explain quite a bit.

Re:What the fuck summary?

[hamburger lady]

Powerade-level saltiness?

it's got what artificial muscles crave!

Re:What the fuck summary?

[Russ1642]

Should be "Score: 6, Spot on"

Re:What the fuck summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they took an Ah-nold spin on the whole thing. It's college humor, slightly dated college humor, but actually funny nonetheless. Especially his facial expression when the lady explains you could eventually get to T-1000, there were lame parts I admit, but there is a huge push on trying to get young people interested in science, and I can see this is job well done. You'd be surprised how many people value "kick-ass" over "science", or think that they aren't smart enough to learn anything sciency, or even feel the need to "appear" smart (You know, like Pokemon, wear I 3 nerds shirt and glasses). It starts with amazement.

Re:What the fuck summary?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of dumb in there. I like "1000 times less."

"New Nano-Muscles! Now with 30% more less!"

OT - What happened with the fishing line muscle

[jgtg32a]

Off topic but what happened with the fishing line muscle? Quick google isn't showing too much new information.

Re:OT - What happened with the fishing line muscle

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great if you happen to have a hair dryer at the point that you need the muscle to work

Shape?

[Anonymous Coward]

> They stretched these particles into football shapes

Is it missing a word, like in "football field shapes" or does it mean "football ball shapes" -- in that case, isn't it simpler to name it "ball shapes"?

Actually, I know the answer (probably). I just wanted you people who like handegg try to explain that... yeah, slow day for jokes...