Digital bodies, molecular, miniature, miniscule — welcome to the next ‘small, very small’ thing

 

Remember the movie, what was it called, about a submarine that’s shrunk and then takes a crew inside a human body to rescue a life? Remember  Fantasic Voyage?

Well, it’s not so fantastic anymore.

It’ll soon be in bloodstreams and moving along … a ‘one molecule submarine‘.

Here’s the official title of this ‘nano-thing’  is courtesy of the  Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University in Texas.

And all along we thought Texas was about being the ‘biggest’, at least that’s their reputation, but this is the smallest…

It’s called a “unimolecular submersible nanomachines (USNs) bearing light-driven motors and fluorophores…”

The submersible contains 244 atoms, is powered by ultraviolet light and moves at top speed at 1 inch per second (that’s fast in a nano world.)

“The fastest-moving molecules ever seen in solution”…

Nanosubs will be able to carry cargoes for medical missions…

So, proof-of-concept is accomplished and next are engineering models (and maybe more special effects in Hollywood movies imagined by writers who are no longer so far from reality.

Just one of multiple upcoming bioengineering advances, a genesis of science in the works.