Adventure Ausrama Blog

Superman or indeed cyberman could soon be with us. Artificial muscles that can hold thousands of times their own weight have been invented. The breakthrough has been made by a team from four nations: Australia, Canada, the US and Korea. Carbon nanotubes were first wound into yarn in Australia. This super strong material far exceeds the flexibility of other artificial muscles. This is not strictly new. It was done several years ago but now work is under way to apply the technology. The yarn is does not yet have enough mass to be used for arm or leg muscles. Ideally, better heart valves, pumps, and positioners could be developed. The yarn has an interesting property: it can be made into a helical structure that will rotate right or left. Applying an electric charge causes it to spin. This makes it easy to propel a tiny object along in the bloodstream for example. This new discovery could revolutionize medicine. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustral

Can nanobots have muscles? Researchers have made very strong, flexible muscles that could be used by nanobots to travel around the body diagnosing and treating medical conditions. As flexible limbs much like octopus tentacles, artificial muscles can move objects a thousand times heavier. Thinner than a human hair, the "yarns" are cheap to make. They could potentially be used for pumps, valves, stirrers and flagella for drug discovery. They were created by applying an electrochemical charge to spun carbon nanotubes making them twist into helical yarns. They are ideal to attach to bots as a tiny tail, a flagella, to propel the bot forward. This was a truly international breakthrough. Participants in the work were the University of Wollongong, Australia, the University of Texas and Hanyang University of Korea. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blog