Swarm of Bacteria Builds Tiny Pyramid

A robotic micro-assembly process relies on several thousand flagellated bacteria acting as micro-workers to build a pyramidal structure. Work presented at IROS '09 by Sylvain Martel and Mahmood Mohammadi from the NanoRobotics Laboratory, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada. For more robot news, visit http://spectrum.ieee.org

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Seigu007]

its amazing what humans can create in this 21st century. Its alien, practically.

[mcglaven]

Careful enslaving the bacteria to build your pyramids. You might wake up one morning to find phage blood smeared on your door and your first-born children dead; meanwhile, Bacterial Moses is parting the petri dish and leading his organisms to freedom.

[AllMightyPijun]

Its alien to normal people. But real aliens aren't what "they" are GOING to tell us they are. Remember this.

[thenumber1ofalltime]

The living state isn't very important. These are bacterias with magnetosomes (small inner inclusions of magnetic metal, like iron) that are exposed to a magnetic field. They can be controlled with the field.

[guigsh]

Got a question... is it the bacteria that do the work through their flagella action, or the magnet pulling the magnetobacteria… in other words: do dead bacteria also perform in this way or do they need to still be alive?

[Ethan McGee]

Hmm... to big, did not watch

[ArcKwill]

Very nice! BUT WILL IT BLEND?

[elbowbiter1]

Your mother has excellent taste in men.

[mave2612]

@moegreen2 No, with magnets.

[mave2612]

My mother's boyfriend is working on this. He is M. Mohammadi.

[plokooo]

harp

[alissa mower clough]

All ye Small Folk, bless ye the Lord, bless ye the Lord...