Nanobots traveling in the bloodstream of humans is hard to visualize, but it is likely to be an important part of healthcare in the future. A complimentary technology has been announced by the University of Texas at Austin. UT engineers there claim to have built the “smallest, fastest, and longest-running synthetic motors ever created”. The nanomotora are less than 1 micrometer in size. A micrometre is one millionth of a meter. I made a spreadsheet to convert the dimension to inches and then calculate how many of these motors could occupy one inch. The answer is 25,400. This is hard to imagine but real.

One of a number of potential uses is targeted drug delivery. Donglei “Emma” Fan, PhD said, “The higher the rotation speed, the higher the release speed. We can control the release of molecules in this manner.” In other words, by speeding up the nanomotor,  more drug molecules would be deposited in the body. The future may include combinations of nanorobots and nanomotors. See the full story at Could This Super Fast Nanomotor Make a Difference? | Qmed.