NanoComputer

A research team lead by Dr Peixuan Guo from the University of Kentucky (USA) have cracked a 35-year-old mystery about the workings of the natural motors that are serving as models for development of a futuristic genre of synthetic nanomotors that pump therapeutic DNA, RNA or drugs into individual diseased cells.

The importance of nanomotors in nanotechnology is akin to that of mechanical engines to daily life. The AAA+ superfamily is a class of nanomotors performing various functions. Their hexagonal arrangement facilitates bottom-up assembly for stable structures. Bacteriophage phi29 DNA-translocation motor contains three co-axial rings and viral DNA-packaging motor has been believed to be a rotational machine. However, the researchers found a revolution mechanism without rotation. By analogy, the earth revolves around the sun while rotating on its own axis.
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Source University of Kentucky: http://nanobio.uky.edu/
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ACS Nano: http://pubs.acs.org

The first self- propelled microsubmarine has been designed in the laboratory of the Jacobs School of Nanoengineering (University of South California at San Diego)  by Dr Joseph Wang and his team.  The task of these microsubmarines is  to pick up droplets of oil from contaminated waters and transport them to collection facilities. The report concludes that these tiny machines could play an important role in cleaning up oil spills, like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Joseph Wang and colleagues explain that different versions of microengines have been developed, including devices that could transport medications through the bloodstream to diseased parts of the body. But no one has ever shown that these devices – which are about 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair — could help clean up oil spills. There is an urgent need for better ways of separating oil from water in the oceans and inside factories to avoid releasing oil-contaminated water to the environment. Wang's team developed so-called microsubmarines, which require very little fuel and move ultrafast, to see whether these small engines could help clean up oil.
Source: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn301175b
To contact Joseph Wang: http://ne.ucsd.edu/~joewang/

Let's remind that a month ago a team from the University of Texas has experimented a nanotechnology based robot jellyfish. To see more click here.

The tiny hairs on the abdomen of a cricket have inspired researchers at the University of Twente in Nederlands, to make a new type of sensor which is ultra sensitive to air flows. These synthetic cricket hairs can now also be tuned very precisely for a certain range of frequencies: the hairs are 10 times more sensitive in this range.

These hairs enable the cricket to feel/hear the approach of its enemies and estimate their distance and direction unerringly. These characteristics can be simulated by making a hair that is suspended in a flexible microsystem. The hair is made of polymer SU8, is 0.9 millimetre in length and is thicker at the base than at the top. The smallest movements are registered by the flexibly-suspended plate to which the hair is attached; the electrical capacity changes as a result and gives a measure for the movement. Potential applications include direction sensors used by robots and the study of very specific air flows. In the longer term, the synthetic hairs could also be used in hearing aids. The hairs can be made extra sensitive to certain frequencies in all these applications.
The researchers of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology are presenting these new results in the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters..
Source: http://www.utwente.nl/organization/stories/synthetic-cricket-pricks-up-its-ears

Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University have now introduced a new bubble-free, high efficient nanomotor system that involves the operation of a miniaturized copper-platinum nanobattery. Their work has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) ("Autonomous Nanomotor Based on Copper–Platinum Segmented Nanobattery"). In this paper, first-authored by Ran Liu, a Ph.D. researcher in Ayusman Sen's group, they demonstrate that this motor system is significantly more efficient than the previously described bimetallic systems, such as platinum-gold segmented nanorod in hydrogen peroxide.

 Click on the picture to see the astonishing video!

The nanomotor described by Liu and Sen is based on self-propelling of template-synthesized copper-platinum bimetallic nanowires in either bromine or iodine diluted solutions. The motion is due to self-electrophoresis induced by the redox reaction occurring at the two electrodes of the copper-platinum nanobattery.

Scientists at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and at Empa (Switzerland) have successfully taken “a decisive step on the road to artificial nano-scale transport systems”. They have synthesised a molecule from four rotating motor units, i.e. wheels, which can travel straight ahead in a controlled manner. “To do this, our car needs neither rails nor petrol; it runs on electricity. It must be the smallest electric car in the world – and it even comes with 4-wheel drive” comments Empa researcher Karl-Heinz Ernst. Reduced to the max: the emission-free, noiseless 4-wheel drive car, jointly developed by Empa researchers and their Dutch colleagues, represents lightweight construction at its most extreme. The nano car consists of just a single molecule and travels on four electrically-driven wheels in an almost straight line over a copper surface. The “prototype” can be admired on the cover of the latest edition of «Nature».

The downside: the small car, which measures approximately 4×2 nanometres – about one billion times smaller than a VW Golf – needs to be refuelled with electricity after every half revolution of the wheels – via the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). Furthermore, due to their molecular design, the wheels can only turn in one direction. “In other words: there’s no reverse gear”, says Ernst, who is also a professor at the University of Zurich, laconically.
Source: http://www.empa.ch/plugin/template/empa/3/114118/—/l=2