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Cornell Nanohelicopters Achieve 8rps 64

Posted by timothy from the soon-we'll-use-them-to-beat-eggs dept.
Logic Bomb points to "[a] New York Times article [free reg req] detailing this rather incredible bit of technological progress. From the article: 'This is the first true nano machine,' said Dr. Carlo D. Montemagno, professor of biological engineering at Cornell and senior author of the Science paper.' Nuff said." Well, perhaps not -- surely it's not the first tiny mechanical device. Stuff That Matters links to this brief ZDNet coverage of the same thing, a bit more breathless.
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Cornell Nanohelicopters Achieve 8rps More

Cornell Nanohelicopters Achieve 8rps

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  • I read the story, and there is no mention of any helicopter in the whole story. The closest it gets is saying that there will be a kind of submarine in your bloodstream. Maybe people should read the story before posting it.

    I honestly thought they got a nano-machine off of the ground. Oh well, that day will come.

  • No, the government doesn't care about us. but Major Baseball yes!

  • Not to be a doomsayer, but... (Score:3)

    by TKarrde98 ( 239805 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @03:27PM (#601786)
    Dr. Besenbacher said the perspective piece was not meant as a prediction, but to inspire researchers to brainstorm about the newly discovered phenomenon.

    I suppose that's what you have to say when you speak without thinking first. Someday humans will realize that Ford Prefect was right-- when a human's mouth opens, his brain stops working. (Thank God \. is all done in the fingertips!)

    ************

    Meanwhile, other researchers have been building tiny motors inspired by machinery inside living cells. The so-called biomolecular motors run on adenosine triphosphate, or ATP for short, the same energy-rich molecule that powers chemical reactions within cells.

    Why do I have sudden images of AI, spider-like robots crawling around fields of human batteries?... I'm not usualy technophobic, but this idea really frightens me-- robots so small you can't see them zipping around my bloodstream parasitically thriving on my energy. Yikes!

    Dr. Montemagno's group grafted nickel propellers onto the central shafts of 400 biomolecular motors. Of those, 395 remained motionless, when immersed in a solution full of ATP. But 5 spun.

    I like those odds-- 1.2% chance of an energy sucker. But if they become self-replicating-- well? The story, "Nightmare Number 3" comes to mind (I believe it's by Stephen Vincent Benet?).

    ---------------------
  • There is actually no air at all on nano scale. And if there is, then the laws of ballistics don't work that well anymore, the propellor creating a vortex cannot push itself forward due to air pressure and vacuum differences.

    I a complete nano-don't-know, but how come the propellor works?

  • The article never got around to clearing up exactly how large these "helicopters" are. Are we talking true-nanoscale (each atom individually manipulated into place) or just micro-scale?
    --
    "HORSE."
  • it has been talked about, extensively. see http://www.google.com/search?q=nanotech+evil+discu ssion

    "My continuing professional work is on improving the reliability of software. Software is a tool, and as a toolbuilder I must struggle with the uses to which the tools I make are put. I have always believed that making software more reliable, given its many uses, will make the world a safer and better place; if I were to come to believe the opposite, then I would be morally obligated to stop this work. I can now imagine such a day may come." Bill Joy

    nanotech is a tool just as a hammer is a tool. tools can be used for good and bad purposes. just because a tool *may* be used to cause harm is no reason not to use the tool. I can beat you over the head with a hammer, but I can also build a house.

  • so who got your upper case letters?

    ...and mine, for that matter...

    --
  • Yes I can see it now, swarms of nano-helicopters flying off to attack the insurgent mosquito populations amid strains of Wagnor's Ride Of The Valkeries...

    I love the smell of Raid(tm) in the morning.
    One time we had a hill gassed for 12 hours. I walked up it when it was all over; we didn't find one of 'em ... not one stinking mozzie corpse. They slipped out in the night -- but the smell -- that chemical smell -- the whole hill -- it smelled like ...
    victory...

  • I wonder how technicians will be able to determine the reliability and performance of their machines in any way other than to witness the aggregate effect they have on their host system/medium. Will or can there be some sort of transmitter or other feedback device embedded on these devices?

    Considering that nanotechnology is typically designed with "one part == one functionality" in mind -- in other words, each component part (re: atom) is integral to the working of the machine -- will a communication system come along under those constraints? Is it physically possible to build a transmitter of some sort using single atoms?

  • Have a few millions of these programmed to eat virus...say the AIDS virus. No more diseases
  • Steering is actually pretty easy, one solution, OTTOMH, is to just build two motors instead of one. Any difference in the speed of the two, either by different rpms or densities of fluid, would cause it to turn. Though I do agree with you in the fact that the easiest way to send thes on their way is to let them into the wind (or bloodstream, etc) and let them find their own way by huge numbers and dumb luck.
  • Not to be a Troll, but, the so-called link to ZDNet coverage actually links to the CBC website.. which is not remotely similiar or related to ZDnet.
    .------------ - - -
    | big bad mr. frosty
    `------------ - - -
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • "We're going to have the device self-assemble inside the human cell," he said. "That's what we're working on now."

    How would this work? Wouldn't you need another nano-machine to assemble it? And wouldn't the possibility that your bloodstream would either carry it away or destroy it make it so hundreds would have to be implanted?

    I still don't see how they could make it assemble itself, lol. i guess i'm a moron (now I'll get a few hundred AC's confirming it)

  • Re:Great... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    WTF? Nano-tech stealth helicopters stole your proportional fonts?
  • > So, "TeknoHog", can you translate this:
    > C;[ENTER];#;#;
    > (translation)
    > See colon, enter colon, pound colon, pound colon

    Those are semicolons, dumbass :)

    - MFN
  • Try to mix in a to help seperate your thoughts. Just having sentences appear concurrently to form paragraph really irks me. Kudos or something
  • The war against mosquitoes has taken an interesting turn gentlemen.

  • Re:Control (Score:3)

    by tesserae ( 156984 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @10:51PM (#601802)
    What's truly interesting is Dr. Montemagno's claim that "this is the first true nano machine" -- considering that what he did was take an enzyme (F1-ATPase, where the "1" is a subscript) which uses adenosine triphosphate (ATP) as an energy source, creating rotary motion as the result. What he did was stick a propellor on the end of the enzyme's shaft... hardly what I'd call creating a nanomachine.

    This is especially true since bacteria already use the enzyme to spin their flagella (for example), to move themselves around. Sort of like taking a car, putting paddlewheels on the axles instead of wheels, and proclaiming that you've developed the "first true self-propelled machine."

    Cute trick, but the hard part -- the nanomotor -- was already built. Nice publicity, though.

    ---

  • MicroElectroMechanical Systems
    http://mems.engr.wisc.edu/what/
    lots of cool stuff older field but no helicopters

  • Re:Nano or just MEMS? (Score:4)

    by tesserae ( 156984 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @11:17PM (#601805)
    The article [sciencemag.org] in Science describes the propellors as being 750 to 1400 nanometers in length, with shafts 150 nm in diameter. In other words, they're microscale, not nanoscale.

    The ATP-fueled motors, of course, are just F1-ATPase enzyme, straight from bacteria... and the enzyme is indeed nanoscale, at ~8 nm diameter and 14 nm length. But Montemagno didn't build it, just co-opted it.

    (The article linked will probably require a paid subscription... sorry 'bout that)

    ---

  • So, I'm assuming that now Electron Jim and his (slightly heavier) pal Proton Bob can finaly settly their differences to go for a flight together. Ah...the power of nanotubes.


    47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)
  • now we get to see the conspiracy freaks totally go insane over this. imagine all the storys now, nano-tech stealth helicopters invading privacy... like the government cares about you.
  • I can see someone misplacing this and then never finding it again.

    Herm...Now where did I put that thing.....

  • Deus Ex is one step closer to reality (Score:3)

    by doublem ( 118724 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @02:22PM (#601809) Homepage Journal

    Now all they have to do is engineer nano - factories into our skin so these suckers can be churned out in the thousands and emitted in a aerosol - like spray from our skin to deflect bullets and intercept rockets....

    The name's Denton, J.C. Denton

    Deus Ex Cheats Page [matthewmiller.net]
  • All of this breathless hype about nanotech is just silly. It is a long, long way from making a propeller spin to making it spin deliberately and perform a useful task. And the holy grail of nanotech, the self-replicating doodad that recreates itself at 1/2 scale, is just plain impossible. Have these folks never heard of the square-cubed law?

    Show me a nanorobot capable of accepting a command and executing it, and I'll stop yawning.

  • I mean, I think nanotech has great potential, but for both good and bad, similar to GM food.

    What irks me is that there does not seem to be any debate about the potential dangers of nanotech.

    Make no mistake, nanotech could destroy the world. It would take just one rogue miachine to run amok to reduce the world to sludge.

    And yet the techy community is, as usual, utterly blase about such issues.

    These questions need to be considered now.

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

  • Or a thousand million years, if you are British. Life is nanotech-based. And it did destroy the world as it was. It turned a carbon dioxide based atmosphere into a highly reactive, oxygen based atmosphere.

    But rogue machines turning amok aren't so dangerous. Nanomachines are extremely fragile, they only survive in their very specific environment. Haven't you read or heard the sentence "biodiversity is endangered"? The potential dangers of nanotech are being considered by the technical people involved, and have been discussed since the nanotech idea was first proposed. Read Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation", chapter 11, "Engines of Destruction", for instance.

    The concept that scientists and engineers are unaware of the dangers of their research comes from people who get a lot of attention and a steady income by sending alarms to the sensationalist tabloids.

    The most pressing issue that needs to be considered regarding nanotech is the economic changes that will come when you can manufacture anything you need for free at home. The entire manufacturing sector of the economy will disappear, only intellectual property will remain. The only economic product will be software, and we have a lot of people willing to give software away for free. Can you imagine a world like that? I cannot.

  • So what happens when you have the ability to create at a whim and unlimited energy?

    Every time that anyone has postulated that the time worked, and the amount worked will decrease, they have been terribly wrong. Look at the 50's and now. Far more labor saving devices. Far less NEED to work. Automated factories, automated accounting, and yet.... we work more.

    When the only job availible is being an extra in films, or being paid to think, then that's what people will do.

    Collapse the economy. Maybe. But it will all be the same Masters and Slaves afterwards.

    Veltyen

  • Control (Score:3)

    by Actinophrys ( 225053 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @02:20PM (#601814)
    It's very good that they have a working motor, but how are they planning to steer these sorts of things? You could just make a whole bunch (easy enough) and let them spread, but then they don't need to be self-propelling.

  • These things are being considered. Often such devices are so incredibly fragile that they cannot survive out of laboratory conditions. Also, these tiny things aren't going to have unlimited power, their strength comes from numbers and working in teams. Nanotech could destroy the world, but it also has great potential to help it. The first can be said for many things humans do, the latter cannot.
  • Obviously, they'd open nano-umbrellas, and ride the wave.

  • Control (Score:2)

    by jjr ( 6873 )
    WHat I am worried how would these devices be controled when inject in the blood stream.

  • You can see video of the nanocopters on the Cornell site here [cornell.edu]

    Join the Planet's largest AI Effort and get FREE SHARES [mindpixel.com]

  • There is a group actively examining and discussing the pros and cons of many new technologies like genetic modification and nanotechnology: The Extropy Institute [extropy.org].
  • VERY proud of you
  • Not trying to be a troll or anything, but there have been a lot of Nano technology stories posted on Slashdot. Shouldn't their be a specific Nanotech topic for posting, instead of them always falling under Science..
    Technically everything on Slashdot related to technology can fall under Science :)

    Just a suggestion..


    --------------------
  • That's just great...

    Black nanocopters over America!

  • What's really weird is that the text is *exactly* the same, word for word!

    http://www.blitzbasic.com/

  • They assemble themselves when the parts come into proximity of one another. I expect this is done with enzymes or enzyme-like structures.
    ---
    Where can the word be found, where can the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.
  • These machines are tiny, but they're still not on the molecular scale. They're large enough that fluid dynamics still apply to them.
    ---
    Where can the word be found, where can the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.
  • Two words: Diamond Age. If you are paranoid about black helicopters, read it and prepare to get real paranoid about the next century or two.
  • Impossible? Do a little research first:

    Engines of Creation [foresight.org]

    "Self-replicating doodads" can be found in nature everywhere. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you'd not be reading this article in the first place were it not for some self-replicating doodads in your head. =)

    paulb

  • Lypo - Array (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25, 2000 @02:28PM (#601828)
    Put me down for a 1000. Maybe I can array them together to harvest all my fat cells. Look out Ricky Martin!
  • Have a few millions of these programmed to eat virus...say the AIDS virus. No more diseases

    Yeah, just trillions and trillions of nanomachines, all demanding protection money, and threatening to rearrange your mitochondria if you don't pay up :)

    Seriously, you can't just unilaterally wipe out all organisms that wipe out disease. If you did that:

    • The cure would be an organism/nanomachine that is in all probability worse than the diseases it wiped out.
    • Life as we know it on this planet would end because life as we know it on this planet depends upon microecologies being exactly as they are.

    What would be cool would be some sort of "police" nanomachines (rather than "hunter/killers").

    These "police" nanomachines wouldn't indiscriminantly destroy everything that they came into contact with, but would identify potentially harmful concentrations of human/animal/whatever pathogens and take action to neutralize them if and only if there was a real need to do so.

    In order to do this, the nanomachines would have to be in contact with some sort of super-AI capable of analyzing the extremely complex and chaotic situation within a given microecology and making "shoot or don't shoot" decisions, and conveying those instructions back to the nanomachines.

    It's a pretty tall order... but feasible if we can lick the problem of establishing a wireless nano-network capable of handling the data load these machines would require.

    Bad germs, bad germs, whatchoo gonna do?

  • I think that maybe they could tag the atoms , sorta like they do in a catscan? (or some other test where they shoot radioactive material into your body and use big machines that hum to look inside you.) Could that yield accurate testing results? -sK
  • I looked at the video. Where's the tail rotor to keep this thing from counterrotating?
  • errr... think about what you said in term of the white blood cells... I'm just asking that we make these nano's the same as the white blood cells...with metal shields...try to attack that HIV! lm
  • Although it always seems to be a good sign when we achieve smaller forms of existing technologies they always raise other questions. Some of which I ponder is first, if they will be able to dynamically program them to be able to do other tasks? I know that would undoubtedly be expensive at first but they seem like they'd be expensive to produce now.
    .--bagel--.---------------.
    | aim: | bagel is back |
    | icq: | 158450 |

  • That's just great. (Score:3)

    by dark_panda ( 177006 ) on Saturday November 25, 2000 @02:59PM (#601836)
    I'm already paranoid enough about the black helicopters that keep circling me everywhere I go, now I have to worry about inhaling nano black helicopters.

    Please stop the insanity.

    J
  • Microsoft today announced the development of Windows NE (Nanomachine Edition). Microsoft is targeting this long-rumored OS, a scaled-down version of Windows CE, to the developing nanomachine market.

    "Now doctors can perform complicated surgery with the reliablility of the Windows (R) platform," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced in a press conference today. "Provided that they pay the appropriate license fees, of course."

    Microsoft has plans to license the OS on a per-machine basis, for a low price of $10.00 a nanomachine. Industry speculators predict that the sheer number of nanomachines required for many surgeries will provide Microsoft with a very large profit margin. Microsoft officials would neither confirm nor deny rampant rumors that license fees would be charged for the future children of users whose lives are saved by these operations.

    Microsoft also announced its plans to market the .NET version of Windows NE, which would allow users to rent Windows NE on a monthly basis. "All we are asking for is a small fee every month for saving a number of lives," Gates told reporters. "Of course, if said fee is not paid, then said life will automatically be revoked by the advanced licensing system of Windows NE."

    However, some of Microsoft's competitors were very vocal in their opposition to Microsoft's announcement. Larry Ellison lambasted Microsoft's announcement, stating that "Microsoft isn't thinking about the future. In the future, medical operations won't be limited to just computers and nanomachines -- ordinary household pens will be able to drill into your skin to perform routine surgery." Not coincidentally, Oracle announced today its intent to develop an OS to power ink, which it plans to market primarily to tattoo parlors worldwide.

  • This is the same story that came from the BBC a few days ago about nanosubmarines. It was also slashdotted. I wish the people in charge of slasdot would do a quick search and stop duplicating stories.
  • This will give the embeded Linux guys something to do.
  • actually, it was the kingpins behind the nanotech helicopter larceny ring, /. that stole my porportional fonts.... only seems to happen here....it's a conspiracy, i tell you, a conspiracy!
  • Scared by nanotech? Move a meter away from it. :P

    Okay, that's a bit facetious. But since most nanotech devices are 1) in early testing 2) have limited power supplies in terms of 'global' possibilities and 3) are incredibly fragile outside of very strictly controlled laboratory conditions, I don't see it as a major problem.

    And the thing is, they're _potential_ dangers. Heck, I don't think there's been a whole mess of testing in real-world conditions (i.e. dirty smelly terra firma where you don't control every single electrical or magnetic field). What happens if nanotech gets too close to a fridge magnet? I don't know. Neither do you.

    If and when there are broad applications for nanotech, then you can start worrying about attack of the 50x10^-9 meter monster. Right now, it's still pretty much in the "Oooo... look what we can do" stage.

    Don't get me wrong, I like nanotech. I want to see all kinds of good sci-fi and SR applications come out of it. I just don't think it's going to happen this year, next year, this decade even.

    Just my 2 shekels.

    Kierthos

  • Shouldn't their be a specific Nanotech topic for posting, instead of them always falling under Science..

    yah! it's not like it would take up a lot of space.

    "I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up

  • tickle while they move around inside me?
  • "Self-replicating doodads" can be found in nature everywhere. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that you'd not be reading this article in the first place were it not for some self-replicating doodads in your head. =)

    We are talking here about artificial doodads. Living things, including highly modified and engineered living things, are not in the same class as a propeller. For one thing, living things don't have rotating parts.

    Oh, and the self-replicating doodads in my (and your) head have to stop self-replicating before they can do that "thinking" thing, suggesting that there are limits even to what living things can accomplish via nanotech.

  • Can we get a Beowulf cluster of these?
    ------------
  • errr... think about what you said in term of the white blood cells... I'm just asking that we make these nano's the same as the white blood cells...with metal shields...try to attack that HIV!

    Even white blood cells need to be able to communicate somehow, in order to know where to collect to fight off an infection and what types of cells register as "foreign, benign; ignore", "foreign, hostile, kill on sight", or "host, ignore". Not being a biologist I don't know how this information gets communicated, but I imagine it's through chemical signals relayed from cell to cell, or something like that. Anything that doesn't have the proper authentication to be in your body sets the nearby white blood cells' off, and they go into "rejection mode", and then somehow after not too long that area of the body has a concentrated population of WBCs fighting the inauthenticated foreign stuff.

    If we build the equivalent of white blood cells with nanotech, it would be most useful to be able to communicate with them remotely, in order to shut them off if they start misbehaving, or to coordinate their activities more effectively. If we could do that with our current white blood cells, we'd be able to do things like fight cancer and HIV infections (which fool the WBCs into leaving them alone when they are in fact pathogenic) with greatly increased effectiveness.

  • No registration needed with this link [nytimes.com].

    Please, /. crew, could you give these 'partners' URLs instead of the ones requiring registration? I know this might cause suspicion at NYTimes, but there are quite a few of us who switch to the 'partners' URL anyway. You kind of miss the point of /. if there's that cumbersome reg stuff between /. and the /.ed article.

    Cheers,
    TeknoHog

    --

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