Get your robot-proof tube socks ready, internet, because science has started to mechanize sperm. By combining your little swimmers with nanotechnology, scientists are hoping these “spermbots” could be used for fertilization – or, to deliver targeted doses of microscopic medicine.
Researchers at the Institute for Integrative Nanosciences in Dresden, Germany, decided sperm would be a great vessel for their project because of their tails (“flagellum”), which help them push through the barriers inside your body. They fit individual sperm cells inside tiny metal tubes – like, “only 50 microns” tiny – and then used magnetic fields to control the direction in which the sperm-knights travelled.
These magnetically-controlled sperm-knights would be harmless to humans, don’t require any sort of power source (a major stumbling block in nanotech), and could deliver specific types of drugs to specific areas in the body.
And, yeah, “sperm-knights.” They’re basically wearing tiny sperm suits-of-armor, so we’re running with it.
(via NewScientist, image via Zen Sutherland)
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