Posthuman Blues

This Machine is Alive! Microscopic Motor Runs on Microbes

Scientists have yoked bacteria to power rotary motors, the first microscopic mechanical devices to successfully incorporate living microbes together with inorganic parts.

"In far future plans, we would like to make micro-robots driven by biological motors," researcher Yuichi Hiratsuka, a nanobiotechnologist now at the University of Tokyo, told LiveScience.

The distinction between the mechanical and the biological has always been a matter of perception . . .