Earthsky Interviews
Private: Are synthetic muscles in our future?
09-06-2007 - Health
Earth & Sky spoke with research scientist Victor Pushparaj, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. His research team created a free-standing, microscopic block of “nanotubes”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube
– like tiny straws made from a sheet of carbon just a few atoms thick.
Victor Pushparaj: _And this block is made up of millions of individually, vertically-aligned multi-walled nanotubes. This nanotube block is analogous to say millions of bamboo shoots in a field._
Nanotubes are the strongest fibers known to science, and they’re also very springy. Pushparaj and his colleagues compressed a block of nanotubes over a half-million times. The tubes held their shape and kept their springiness.
Pushparaj said the nanotubes might someday mimic the soft tissue of a person’s shoulder muscles or stomach wall, which expand and contract millions of times over one’s life. Many years of study are still needed. There’s concern, for example, about the toxicity of nanotubes when they interact with human tissues. Still, Pushparaj is hopeful.
Victor Pushparaj: _Nanotechnology can do wonders._
Thanks to the “National Science Foundation”:http://www.nsf.gov.
“All things nano”:http://earthsky.org/article/all-things-nano
“Top 10 things to know about nanotechnology”:http://earthsky.org/blog/50688/top-10-things-to-know-about-nanotechnology
“Tough Tubes: Carbon Nanotubes Hold Potential For Synthetic Tissue, Muscles”:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702145144.htm
“Carbon nanotubes could make synthetic muscles”:http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2193557/carbon-nanotubes-synthetic
*Our thanks to:*
“Victor L.A. Pushparaj Ph.D”:http://www.rpi.edu/~pushpv/main.htm
Senior Research Specialist
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Center for Industrial Innovation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York
As a baseball fan, I wonder whether they will let pitchers with synthetic shoulder muscles into the Hall of Fame. I suppose they will. I suppose they will let Barry Bonds in too. Our only hope is that Barry will never hit another homer. Maybe he’ll tear a shoulder muscle. But then he’ll probably be the first guy to get a synthetic shoulder, and we’ll be right back where we started….
Steroids… nano-muscles. soon we will be putting a robot in Coopersville.
fuggeddabout baseball… think what it could be like in football?
or, didn’t this article mention synthetic stomach lining? what about competetive eating?
They may put a robot in Coopersville, but lord can only hope they’ll never put one in Cooperstown.