7 ms·
A new class of tiny, self-propelled robots that can zip through liquid at speed
- politician 3y agoI wonder how much damage those propeller fins can do to vascular tissue, especially capillaries, and at what density.
- jostmey 3y agoWe already have tiny robots that can crawl through our body and remove damaged cells, including cancerous cells... our immune cells. Some immune cells can even crawl between other cells in solid organs, known as tissue infiltrating lymphocytes. The future may lie in engineering these already existing tools to be better. This is essentially the promise of new technologies like CAR T cell therapies, where immune cells are engineered to help control cancer.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoMaybe we could spend more time figuring out what actually causes painful bladder syndrome and fix that instead of taking our cues for shiny new (headline grabbing) tech from science fiction as a higher priority than actual health.
- sebzim4500 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- internetter 3y ago> Maybe we could spend more time figuring out what actually causes painful bladder syndrome Yeah, I guess we could also do that for cancer! Then we wouldn't need to invest so much resources making treatments for it.... Jokes aside, I don't know anything about painful bladder syndrome, but much like other illnesses, a cure is often much harder to develop. In the meantime, what we can do is develop treatments. Plus, as the article hints at, there are so many other applications for it. When I read it, I read the current tests as a proof of concept. The sky is the limit with simple treatments that currently require surgeries or other invasive procedures that could be addressed here. An optimistic moonshot is teaching them to attack tumors. All and all, if you couldn't tell, I'm really bullish on this tech.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoI don't think this is anything to joke about.
- momirlan 3y agomicroplastics in the bloodstream, what could possibly go wrong ?
- ibz 3y agoRemotely controlled particles (machines?) in the bloodstream. What could possibly go wrong?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- msie 3y ago10 years away for mainstream use I’ll bet.
- convolvatron 3y agohow to they steer? or more broadly navigate? if I dumped a bunch of self-powered boat propellers in a swimming pool, would anything aside from brownian diffusion and uncontrolled collisions happen?
- yalogin 3y agoWhat are the use cases for this though? Such a small thing cannot carry anything or pack enough of a punch to cause any impact either
- mildred593 3y agoblood clots, anyone ?
- throw1234651234 3y agoWell, maybe it can clean them while doing analytics. Those are really the only two use-cases so far. Not like it can repair tears or improve artery/vein wall quality.
- sovnade 3y agoWouldn't something like this actually be great at breaking up clots?
- jmartrican 3y agoIf possible they should make these robots out of material that dissolves over a period of time.
- dpflan 3y agoI feel like the singularity will be achieved by ultra-rich pursuing longevity science and essentially making themselves human-machine organisms comprised of nano-bots and a brain until all is replaced with always upgradeable materials to ensure longest longevity.
- CommanderData 3y agoWhen we get to true nanoscale bots or even the size that can traverse all vascular systems of all size, carry drug payloads with targeted delivery and perform micro surgery, being self powered and able to communicate. I think I'll celebrate but we're far far away from that reality. Last I checked, we have nano medicine with targeted delivery with limited success. I think some of these made it to market.
- ftxbro 3y ago> I feel like the singularity will be achieved by ultra-rich It will trickle down though right like a rising tide lifts all boats
- Jeff_Brown 3y ago"trickle down like a rising tide" is the greatest mixed metaphor I have ever heard.
- ChatGTP 3y agoExcept if there is any sign of inflation, then you can go to hell.
- moffkalast 3y agoMore like a rising tide floods the streets and causes billions in property damage.
- bilbo0s 3y agoYou guys are pretty optimistic, and I admire you for it. I want to be like you. My first thought went to assassin nanytes that could be delivered in target's tea, target's swimming pool or spa, target's shower or bath, or even the rain if you're clever enough about it. They have to work out locomotion, but I'm sure they've got some bright people working on that already in most of the world's intelligence services. These kinds of devices would have the benefit of deniability, rendering attribution virtually impossible. And their delivery would involve far less risk and danger. Pretty sure we can all envision a multi modal version 20 years from now, making delivery trivial and zero risk. I hope you guys are right though, and we use it as a medicine rather than a weapon. My gut just tells me we'll develop it as both, and the weapon will be far more effective.
- beanjuice 3y agoThe paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smll.202300409 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smll.202300...
- incomingpain 3y agoBorg incoming.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- amelius 3y agoAs long as they can not swim up against a stream of urination.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoIf you're a man who pees that slowly, you should see a urologist. You may have an enlarged prostate. OTOH, if they can be used to seek and destroy in-motion kidney stones, the inventors could become billionaires.
- codetrotter 3y ago> swim up against a stream of urination As per findings by the Mythbusters some number of years ago, the stream of pee is not unbroken. > The Mythbusters tested the myth that you could be electrocuted by peeing on the 3rd rail. The myth was 'busted' as the stream would be broken up due to distance and there wouldn't be a continuous path for the electrical current to follow. https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/02/1536218/mythbusters-peeing-on-3rd-rail-busted https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/03/02/1536218/mythbust...
- varjag 3y agoLong time ago, I've seen a dog electrocuted while peeing at a sliding security gate motor.
- capableweb 3y agoYou can definitely get a shock if you stand not miles away from a electric fence and pee at it. I've personally observed this, to much dismay. Not sure how peeing specifically on a "3rd rail" is relevant. The distance seems more relevant, as the further away your pee-droplets reach, the further away they'll move from each other. But stand close enough and the stream will be unbroken.
- boredumb 3y ago"3rd rail" probably because it's a half joke/half warning about the subways in NYC being electrified on the 3rd rail and not to be a jerk and piss in public.
- chubbnix 3y agoIs self propelled the right wording when you blast a loose propellor with ultrasonic waves? If so I have created a large variety of self propelled robots in my ultrasonic cleaning machine.
- cooljacob204 3y agoNo it's not. It's an external force propelling it. Clickbait article and headline. It's literally a piece of plastic that they move with noise. It's neither self propelling or a robot. This kind of stuff has also already been done with magnetic fields.
- moffkalast 3y agoBut did they look like tiny-ass boat propellers? See, not nearly as cool.
- cornholio 3y agoWait until that propeller has controllable pitch and direction, commanded by the on board chip. 20 um x20 um is enough area, in a 2nm process, to accommodate roughly 100,000 transistors. That's about 5x the Apollo guidance computer. So you would supply bulk ultrasound energy to the organ or area you are treating, and these tiny machines would start to have complex interactions, communicate and locate themselves relative to one another, and coordinate to attack the tumor, deliver the drug, destroy amyloid plaque etc.
- beambot 3y ago20um x 20um is still a bit impractical -- it gets close to the practical limits of wafer dicing, and you need support circuitry. That said, we've made useful payloads in as little as 100um x 100um; here's an example of our (published) work in 200um x 200um: A 200µm x 200µm x 100µm, 63nW, 2.4GHz Injectable Fully-Monolithic Wireless Bio-Sensing System http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implantable_sensor.pdf http://www.travisdeyle.com/publications/pdf/2017_rfic_implan...
- arthur2e5 3y agoThat's starting to sound like an RFID device, but with sound instead of radio waves. In this framework I guess the propeller-thing is analogous to a Crookes radiometer.[0] I wonder what would be the Great Seal Bug[1]? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_radiometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_radiometer [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
- Jorge1o1 3y agoNanomachines, son!
- rolph 3y agomicro-effectors; nano effectors; but not independent bots.
- dncornholio 3y agoCan we call them robots when there is no mechanics working inside them?
- ibz 3y agoIf you are part of the marketing team, yes.
- bitwize 3y agoThere was an Intellivision game called Microsurgeon, later ported to the TI-99/4A, that saw you controlling a tiny probe swimming through a patient... you had to zap the viruses and bacteria with appropriate treatments while navigating the patient's body. It's cool to see reality approaching such high-concept stuff.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoNot bad, but call me when it's a submarine with Raquel Welch on board. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmNTFlRASYY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmNTFlRASYY (Fantastic Voyage, 1966)
- scoopr 3y agoFantastic reference, that I had not come across. For me, Outer limits - The New Breed (s01e17), came to my mind.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoHaha I hadn't seen that for decades. Those special effects look like something a kid could do today. Do you remember whether in the movie they explained why they can see outside the ship?
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoIt's been ages since I watched it too. I don't remember if they tried to explain any of the "science" - rather doubt it. Maybe blood is clear between the red blood cells? Guess they had good lights on the sub too. Flesh Gordon (campy porn version of Flash Gordon) is another recommended movie with similarly awful special effects !
- DennisP 3y agoFrom a quick google, healthy plasma is light yellow and translucent. At the tiny distance our miniature heroes were looking through, it'd probably be close enough to transparent. The original book by Isaac Asimov probably had pretty accurate biology. Don't know how much the movie changed it.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoOr its spiritual successor with Dennis Quaid on board, Innerspace (1987).
- 3y ago
- grantsucceeded 3y agoso nobody read Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson? Basically, nanotec bots that spin around on command are put into the bodies of people, so they can be made to spin around and dissolve them from the inside out.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoThat's not the only thing they do! They also could fire muscle fibers perpetually so people who wantef to could get huge without intentionally working out, at the cost of looking twitchy all the time. I loved that book.
- dabluecaboose 3y agoWouldn't that still make you sore and tired all the time? Neat concept, though
- azeemba 3y agoAnyone know what is the smallest man-made powered device capable of mechanical movement? I assume we can make mm-scale things. Considering that this 20um item is in the news and isn't powered, maybe mm scale is where the current limit is?
- orbital-decay 3y agoMEMS can have elements as small as 1um. Molecular robotics operates at much smaller scales. But generally, the line between what is mechanical and what isn't becomes the blurrier the smaller the scale is.
- dist-epoch 3y agoPeople made devices where a single atom can be moved at will. But they are fixed.
- gene-h 3y agoIf you mean smallest robot with an onboard power supply and control, mm is the best we can do. The problem is that the power conversion electronics are too large. Electromagnets don't work well as you scale down. So you need piezoelectric/electrostatic actuators which need high voltage. Converting low battery voltage up is difficult without electrical transformers.
- jfarlow 3y agoI've designed a device that utilizes mechanical force to transmit information that was around 5nm in diameter. It was based on the human Notch receptor. It's a few hundred amino acids in length, folded to produce a protein that senses force transmission, is cleaved upon unfolding, and releases a transcription factor the nucleus of a cell. I kind of find the distinction of 'robots' vs cells funny, as once you get down to the (sub)nanometer level one's intuition should flip: organic material acts stiffer and more lego-like than metals - which act more like unreliable putties. A "device" that becomes small enough is much more likely to be made of organic molecules than metallic molecules - cells ARE those futuristic robots... The kinesin motor proteins are pretty cool too [1], but those are naturally occurring machines that I suspect we'll be imitating for a long time. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8
- lapama 3y agoNext they will fly and cut your hear, in their most civil application. Post Scriptum: I apologise if for some reason the above joke is found out of order.
- dmbche 3y ago"The team makes its microrobots out of materials called biocompatible polymers using a technology similar to 3D printing. The machines look a bit like small rockets and come complete with three tiny fins. They also include a little something extra: Each of the robots carries a small bubble of trapped air, similar to what happens when you dunk a glass upside-down in water. If you expose the machines to an acoustic field, like the kind used in ultrasound, the bubbles will begin to vibrate wildly, pushing water away and shooting the robots forward." Incredible! So they're driven from outside the body and are just a delivery mechanism without electronics?
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoAir bubbles in the blood are lethal. Is that not a problem? Do the machines need to be reclaimed after they do their thing?
- Retric 3y agoIt only takes 2-3 cubic centimeters of air in the blood to kill someone but this is several orders of magnitude smaller. These things are 0.02mm ( 0.0008 inches) wide, ~1/100 millionth of a cubic centimeter, individual bubbles or even fairly large numbers of bubbles of that size aren’t a significant issue.
- ohgodplsno 3y agoAir bubbles are typically not lethal until over 150cc of air. That's a massive amount, that will not be reached by those machines.
- deskamess 3y agoLet say one of those rockets dropped its air bubble somehow. How does the body get rid of it? Or does it?
- programmer_dude 3y agoI think the air will escape through the lungs eventually.