Nanocar Wins Top Science Award 175
Lucas123 writes "A researcher who built a car slightly larger than a strand of DNA won the Foresight Institute Feynman Prize for experimental nanotechnology. James Tour, a professor of chemistry at Rice Univ. built a car only 4 nanometers in width in order to demonstrate that nanovehicles could be controlled enough to deliver payloads to build larger objects, such as memory chips and, someday, even buildings, like a self-assembling machine. Tour and a team of postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers constructed a car with chassis, working suspension, wheels and a motor. 'You shine light on it and the motor spins in one direction and pushes the car like a paddle wheel on the surface,' Tour said. The team also built a truck that can carry a payload."
Re:Sci-Fi meets Science (Score:2, Informative)
"I mean, a couple of centuries ago, they could've only imagined "horseless carriages"."
Two centuries ago = late 1808
Nicholas Cugnot produced a working steam-driven horseless carriage in 1769. The first steam locomotive was built by Richard Trevithick in 1804.
http://nevertoolatebook.com/FardierdeCugnot20050111.jpg [nevertoolatebook.com]
Re:Tron/Fantastic Voyage/Flintstones (Score:2, Informative)