Someone mentioned nano-machines, which are tiny, sometimes microscopic machines, in a previous comment, and now look what I found. This story on CNN describes how for the first time scientists have been able to deploy microscopic machines, essentially tiny gold rods, into a cell’s interior to destroy the cell.

Why would you want to do that? As the article states, if they could be injected into cancer cells specifically and destroy them, it would be a milestone moment in the fight against that insidious disease. Not only that, while all you’d want to do is destroy cancer cells, if the motors could be enhanced so they could carry out more specific tasks, they could be used for other beneficial purposes. Again, quoting the article, ‘surgery within the cell.’ I don’t know why that would be desirable, but I’ll leave that up to the doctors. I aso believe, although I can’t say with certainty, that this is based on previous research, also done at Penn state by chemists back in 2007, that involved the manipulation of 2-micrometer gold rods.

Any time we get closer to better ways for fighting illness and disease, I’m always amazed, and while the practical application of this technology is a long way off, it holds promise.