Tuesday, May 01, 2007

 

Biological MEMS

Bruce cites PhysOrg.com:
The single-celled Spirostomum is a tiny brown worm that can contract its 500-micrometer-long body to 25% of its length in a millisecond, making this protozoan the fastest-contracting microorganism known. Scientists think of microorganisms like this as tiny functional machines. After all, many of them have capabilities far surpassing the current state-of-the-art in MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) technology.
So what does our little friend Spiro eat? And how do we get him/her to jump at our command? But, I like the idea of putting these babies to work. Especially if we can get them to clean out the garage . . .

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