These microscopic robots can swim through your eyeball fluids
These microscopic robots can swim through your eyeball
fluids
Nov 07, 2014 18:06 By Andy Dawson
The scientists at the beautifully-named Max Planck
Institute for Intelligent Systems aren't quite sure what happens next though
We've all been hoping and praying that scientists would
one day come up with some microscopic robots that could swim through our
eyeball fluids and help heal our poorly eyes.
Thankfully, that day is almost upon us.
Give praise to the scientists at the beautifully-named
Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems over in Germany, because they've
won the race.
They've fashioned robotic scallops so small that they can
barely be seen by the naked eye, which is just as well because that’s where
they’re headed.
Our bodies contain viscous liquids that can grow thicker
or thinner, and the scallop swimming method of moving backwards and forwards is
the best way to move through those liquids.
You all knew that, right?
The micro-scallops don’t require battery power either –
they are propelled towards their target area using an external magnetic field.
So what will the microscopic robot scallops do?
That's where it all starts to get a bit vague – the Max
Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems scientists aren't completely sure.
They're hoping that their tiny inventions will become a
reference design for others to use as they develop medical technologies.
Essentially, we’re halfway there – we've got the scallops
that can swim through our eye fluid, but we don’t know what they’ll do once
they get to the poorly bits.
Science – it’s always moving and flowing, just like our
viscous bodily fluids.
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