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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday September 27 2016, @09:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the innerspace dept.

One day, microrobots may be able to swim through the human body like sperm or paramecia to carry out medical functions in specific locations. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have developed functional elastomers, which can be activated by magnetic fields to imitate the swimming gaits of natural flagella, cilia and jellyfish. Using a specially developed computer algorithm, the researchers can now automatically generate the optimal magnetic conditions for each gait for the first time. According to the Stuttgart-based scientists, other applications for this shape-programming technology include numerous other micro-scale engineering applications, in which chemical and physical processes are implemented on a miniscule scale.

A sperm is equipped with a flagellum (tail-like extension), which can beat constantly back and forth to propel the sperm towards an egg. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have now enabled an extremely thin strip of silicone rubber, which is just a few millimetres in length, to achieve a very similar swimming pattern. To do this, they embedded magnetizable neodymium-iron-boron particles into an elastic silicone rubber and subsequently magnetized this elastomer in a controlled way. Once the elastomer is placed under a specified magnetic field, the scientists were then able to control the elastomer's shape, making it beat back and forth in a wave-like fashion.

+1 Cool, +1 Creepy?


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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Entropy on Tuesday September 27 2016, @10:08PM

    by Entropy (4228) on Tuesday September 27 2016, @10:08PM (#407113)

    The social justice warrior feminists will never allow something to swim through their body like sperm; This technology must be banned because it is fundamentally discriminatory. Millions of children must suffer so that feminist social justice warriors can feel they are correct.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:40PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:40PM (#407410) Journal

      A better line of attack would be for a SJW to start a rumor that this new technology causes autism. And then teach the controversy not the facts.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:46PM

        by Entropy (4228) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:46PM (#407538)

        Ahh, I see! Perhaps add in that they contain mercury, too.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:20PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:20PM (#407571) Journal

          Just tell everyone that nano bots contain the same amount of mercury as a Windows 10 install does.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by Entropy on Thursday September 29 2016, @03:59AM

            by Entropy (4228) on Thursday September 29 2016, @03:59AM (#407732)

            Any such comparison would dissuade me. Can you imagine nanobot blue screen of death? New levels of literally.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:09AM (#407145)

    The spelling should be “minuscule”, not “miniscule”.

  • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:51AM

    by art guerrilla (3082) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:51AM (#407152)

    ...cause it ain't gonna be no organ repairbot, ain't gonna be no insulin pumpbot, it is going to be a weaponbot...
    now, just how to make the next dozen (and a dozen after that, ad infinitum) heads of state (and lawyers, and teachers, dissenters, etc) debilitated or dead without raising too many eyebrows...
    who controls the nanobotz, controls the world...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:23AM (#407234)

      To get rid of uninvited robots in your body, use an electromagnet to find them.

      Give it a chance. It clearly looks like positive progress, not another way to murder people.

      And don't be scared of new technology. If you do, that (((race))) will use that fact against you.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @10:05AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @10:05AM (#407808)

        You've seen that game with the BBs in the maze? Clearing these from one's bloodstream with a magnet could be like that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @10:18AM (#407312)

      People are already being assassinated using difficult to prove poisons and methods. USA and Israel carry out routine assassinations throughout the world as a matter of state policy. They haven't waited for nanobots to murder people. And nanobots won't stop them either.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:45PM (#407628)

      If you kill someone, you no longer have control over that person.

      If you have information, or believable misinformation, that can disgrace or discredit someone, you can control that person without an implant.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:37PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:37PM (#407407) Journal

    "A sperm is equipped with a flagellum (tail-like extension), which can beat constantly back and forth to propel the sperm towards an egg."

    I don't think that is accurate. In some documentary type thing on cable some years ago, I saw a better explanation of that.

    Under a microscope it looks like a tail beating back and forth. In reality, the sperm has something more like a motor that rotates the tail in continuous rotation. The tail is like a cork screw being rotated. That propels the head of the sperm forward. Viewed on a 2D microscope slab from a single POV, that rotating corkscrew looks like a flat tail with a wave motion along the length of the tail. But the sperm being 3D, and having a corkscrew tail explains why EVERY sperm has the same appearance of a flat tail with a wave motion. It just looks that way from a microscope. If the sperm had a flat tail with a wave motion that beat back and forth, then only some small percent of them would happen to be "aligned" toward the viewer in such a way as to look they way they do. Since they ALL look like this, the 3D corkscrew tail is the explanation.

    More detail is coming back to me now. This was in a court case where some state had to stop teaching creationism over evolution. One of the arguments was how could such a cellular motor in the tail evolve. And that question was actually answered similarly to how a complex eye could evolve. A simpler version of tail motion had some survival advantage.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday September 28 2016, @04:56PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday September 28 2016, @04:56PM (#407509) Homepage Journal

    Nobots. [mcgrewbooks.com]

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    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:27PM

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:27PM (#407573) Journal

    If the technology for nano bots is developed, why use it for something as pointless as repairing cells and curing illness?

    Develop brain implant bots that automatically charge your credit card whenever you happen to overhear or glimpse any copyrighted audio or visual material.

    Everyone dies. But Copyright is FOREVER !!!

    Nobody can pay for nano bot treatments. But there are whole giant blood sucking leech industries willing to give you injected nano bots for free. Or made compulsory. For your protection, of course.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.