39
Fully programmable microrobots operate at cellular scale using nanowatt power
(interestingengineering.com)
Why is there a can of salmon in the picture??
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
39 points (93.3% liked)
Technology
83631 readers
4017 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It’s a finger under heavy magnification, if you’re not joking.
If you are, it’s because they wanted to demonstrate how e-fish-ient their new technology is.
I always assumed nanoscale robots would need to be lithography-based. Seems that was right. On the other hand, I assumed a MEMS actuator… their solid state propulsion is very interesting.
Article is locked for me, but I'm assuming piezo crystals?
The robot’s electrokinetic propulsion exploits microscale physics. Platinum electrodes drive fluid flow with no moving parts at around 60 nanoamperes. Four electrodes enable translation, rotation, and arcing. They currently operate at 1 volt, but could reach 10 times faster speeds near water’s electrolysis limit.
Electric field propulsion, apparently
I can only see the picture but from the scale they seem to be too big to be nanobots. They seem to be about 3 or 4 mm so they're not going in your blood vessels that's for sure.
Haha that picture shows one on a finger. It’s literally half the size of a single ridge of your fingerprint. Like a speck of dust.
Yay! Who had Grey Goo apocalypse for April?
It's alright they'll be out competed by the 5G nanobots.
Nah, it won't be an apocalypse. Just more of the dystopia we're all completely accustomed to. You'll get ads based on the content of your blood. Police will show up at your door minutes after you ingest any illegal drug. And you know that thing where LinkedIn and dating apps are like "we may or may not have found you a match, pay us to find out!" You'll get notifications like that about cancer.
We getting the nanos from 17776?