What is nanomachin?
nanomachins are very small machines whose dimensions or ingredients are measured in nanometers. Nanomachin may be greater than 1,000 nanometers, but usually not greater than 10,000 nanometers (10 microns). The design and production of nanomachins is the goal in a large and well -financed discipline of nanotechnology, although many workers in nanotechnology are embarking on a less ambitious route of designing passive nanoparticles. Nanomachin refers to an active functional system with nanoparticles.
The human body is filled with nanomachins, probably formed by most of its matter. The cell can be considered nanomachin because it consists of nanoparticles. An even brighter nanomachin would be ribosomes, molecular factories that synthesize proteins. Ribosomes have a diameter of about 20 nanometers. Other biological nanomachins would be bacteria and viruses.
Cunanomachins are still essentially in the research and development phase, although scientists areu very promising for their long -term potential. One nanomachin announced in April 2008 by Nano Machine Center at the California Institute of Nanosystems in UCLA, can release anti -cancer drugs in the cell when the light is activated. The machine called nanoimpeller consists of mesoporesis nanoparticles of silica with pores covered with azobensene, chemicals that can switch between two different positions depending on the exposure to the light. The interior of the nanoimpeller was filled with anti -cancer drug, then introduced into human cancer cells in culture, where the coaxial exposure of light was released by their payload. Changes in the intensity and wavelength of light have provided scientists with accurate control of their nanomachin.
Another interesting nanomachiny was built by the laboratory of Nadrian Seeman at the Department of Chemistry New York University. Seeman created an active grid alternating between configurations and even DNA "Walker" that can move forward to molecular "legsH ". The Seemana Laboratory has shown the versatility of DNA as a building material for nanomachins.
Although nanomachins are in the research phase, their greatest long -term impact could have in the field of production, medicine and armies. If nanomachins could be adequate to self -criticism or could be built in large quantities by means of self -construction and programmed to cooperate on object creation, they could be created into their own production system with much greater abilities than anything that exists today. Such a hypothetical desktop device was called nanofactors.