Sperm powered Robots!

I can not resist an article that starts of with" Think we make this stuff up? No chance!" From MSNBC via Suicide Robots is an article describing how the whip-like tail of sperm could be harnessed to send nanobots throughout the human body. Up to this point it has proven very difficult to develop enough power to get a nanobot to move. Present day engineering would have motive engines formed from tiny springs and nuts and bolts. However at the nano scale, biology provides the best functional motors. One very efficient engine takes the form of the tail, or flagellum, that propels human sperm at a rate of about 7 inches per hour. (by comparison in human scale, the distance would be equivalent to swimming almost 4 miles in an hour. ) To supply the energy for its locomotion, a sperm cell’s tail is essentially studded with tiny assembly lines that produce a high-energy compound called ATP. Research is now going on on how to best attatch and control the tail to move the nanobot medical devices around the body. Read the complete article on MSNBC.

<- MSNBC article ->