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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Fantastic voyage comes a tiny step closer NSW researchers have developed tiny artificial muscles that can twist like those in the trunk of an elephant or the arm of an octopus. Made from a tough, flexible yarn spun from carbon nanotubes, they could speed up the design of futuristic nanobots that can travel through the body detecting and treating disease. Geoff Spinks, of the University of Wollongong, said a big hurdle to the development of medical nanobots was how to propel them in the bloodstream. His team's twisty artificial muscles would be small and strong enough to achieve this, by turning a long propeller in the same way that bacteria use a long spinning tail to swim. But building such nanobots was still a distant prospect. "It would be a challenge," Professor Spinks, of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, said. So far, the artificial muscles have been used to carry out more mundane tasks, such as mixing liquids in the lab with a paddle. A carbon nanotube is a minuscule cylinder of carbon with a diameter about one 10 thousandth the width of a human hair. Members of the team at the University of Texas have developed an inexpensive way to spin the stiff nanotubes into a helical bundle of fibres, or yarn, that can be metres long. "The yarns are highly conductive and quite strong even though their diameter is tiny," Professor Spinks said. The Wollongong researchers made an "unexpected observation" when studying the yarn. They found it began to rotate when it was placed in an electrically conducting liquid and a voltage was applied. By maximising the conditions, the team has been able to get the yarn to spin a paddle that is 2000 times heavier at a speed of 600 revolutions a minute. The rotation is reversed when the voltage is changed. The results of the study are published in the journal Science. Professor Spinks said similar twisting muscles are found in nature. Elephant trunks and octopus arms, for example, have helically wound muscle fibres that rotate by contracting against an incompressible core. "When the muscle fibres contract, it causes the [elephant's] trunk to twist and bend and produce all sorts of elaborate shapes," he said. The carbon nanotube yarn works slightly differently. Its rotation is caused by the yarn swelling up and shrinking in length as the volume of liquid in it increases. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
Will Raquel Welch be involved?
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