Robobug: Scientists Clad Bacterium With Graphene To Make a Working Cytobot

Zothecula writes By cladding a living cell with graphene quantum dots, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) claim to have created a nanoscale biomicrorobot (or cytobot) that responds electrically to changes in its environment. This work promises to lay the foundations for future generations of bio-derived nanobots, biomicrorobotic-mechanisms, and micromechanical actuation for a wide range of applications. "UIC researchers created an electromechanical device — a humidity sensor — on a bacterial spore. They call it NERD, for Nano-Electro-Robotic Device. The report is online at Scientific Reports, a Nature open access journal."

Comments

Not a robot

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:
"We’ve taken a spore from a bacteria [sic], and put graphene quantum dots on its surface – and then attached two electrodes on either side of the spore," said Berry. "Then we change the humidity around the spore. When the humidity drops, the spore shrinks as water is pushed out. As it shrinks, the quantum dots come closer together, increasing their conductivity, as measured by the electrodes. We get a very clean response – a very sharp change the moment we change humidity."

So clearly, it's not a robot, it's a sensor.

They've just put accurate sensors on a bacteria.

[mjgday]

All the clever sensing is done by the bacteria, all they've done is attach a big flag to the bacteria so that when it does what it does we can tell.

Whilst this may be very useful, it's hardly outwitting nature, or creating new forms of life, or doing anything that'd be likely to be disastrous in any way.

It's as tho putting a radio collar on a polar bear turns it into some cyborg killing machine.