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When Nanotechnology and Biotechnology “Marry” – What Will Their Childen Be Like?

When Nanotechnology and Biotechnology were brought together by Professor Carlo Montemagno at the University of California, Los Angeles, nature’s wisdom and art’s design synergized to produce tiny living robots! These devices are less than a millemeter long, move by themselves without external power, and are are “grown” from rat heart muscle cells – over silicon based or plastic “bones” with mini-hinges.

URL: BBC News – “Living” Robots Powered by Muscle Cells

“They’re absolutely alive,” Professor Montemagno told BBC News. “I mean the cells actually grow, multiply and assemble – they form the structure themselves. So the device is alive.” (This is a short exerpt from the above BBC article by Roland Pease.)

But what are we going to do with these little living machines? One of the possibilities, naturally, is putting them to work, generating power by driving mini-generators – for running computers and other devices. Whether people have concerns over nanotechnology and living mechanical inventions, or not, these “little guys” are real, and walking along on their tiny, hinged, heart-muscled legs (under our microscopic sights) right now, with the full range of potential for good and for ill included!

URL: Abstract from Nature – Materials

And they started out just like everything under the sun (and the moon) always has – as a dream danced awake and to life!


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