The First Nanobot Assembly Line In Action
The future is rushing at us faster than ever…
Today in Nature, a group of researchers announced they’d successfully operated the first assembly line populated entirely by nanobots.
A release from Nature explains:
Nadrian Seeman and colleagues create a nanoscale ‘assembly line’, in which DNA walkers move past programmable DNA machines that can deliver ‘cargo’ (gold nanoparticles) to the walkers. In addition to four ‘legs’, the DNA walkers have three ‘hands’ that accept the cargo. The assembly line has three DNA machines, each of which holds a different type of cargo, and can be set either to transfer its cargo to the walker, or to withhold it. In this way, the nano-assembler can be programmed to produce eight (23) different ‘products’, all with usefully high yields.
[University of Wisconsin chemist] Lloyd Smith notes that the assembly line of Seeman and colleagues marks a milestone in DNA nanotechnology, in using ‘systems of nanomachines, rather than individual devices’ to perform an operation.
