Nanobots ready to swim in human blood

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New mini robots soon to be injected into humansEnter the nanobotsScientists at Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University have developed tiny nanobot micromotors that are a mere quarter of a millimeter, powered by tiny piezoelectric motors, capable of swimming in the human bloodstream. They are putting the finishing touches on the motors and readying them for clinical tests on animals and, before long, humans.While the team is still devising ways to remote control the new robots, they feel that they have a solid solution for an autonomous motor design in the form of piezoelectricity. Piezoelectricity is the ability of devices to generate electric pulses based on mechanical movement or vibrations. Piezoelectric devices include computer's clocks, electric guitar pickups, electric stove lighters, and some inkjet printer heads.In the human body, the flow of blood provides abundant kinetic energy. While a nanobot is too small to likely have a useful battery, it could exploit this kinetic energy to power tiny micromotors.The new micromotors will allow nanobots to reach places that previous minimally invasive surgery could not, like the human brain.The team has developed prototypes of the micromotors, which they describe in a journal article found in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.The next step is to develop more efficient assembly methods, and to devise ways to control the motors more accurately. The team's work should be a natural fit, though for other researchers' designs, which feature useful arterial nanobots, but lack a system of propulsion. The new work is similar to work by American researchers at Georgia Tech who are working to create blood-powered generators for implants.- This is from 2008,It appeared funny when people were mentioning nano robot implants, but they actually exist.