Rat Powered Devices

[mythusmage]

Muscle Powered Nanotech

Got the URL from the Skeptix mailing list. I though you'd enjoy hearing about it. Could give a whole new meaning to 'muscle car'.

 

[Pinotage]

Interesting. A while back there were some Japanese who implanted heater elements in strategic places on the body (muscles) of cockroaches. Once the heaters were switched on and off, they could control the way in which the cockroach moved. A primitive form of torture, to be sure, but a more advanced version of what's written here.

Pinotage

 

[Turanil]

Then I did read not long ago of a computer chip made of brain cells. So it appears that the future of robotics will be living androids. Mmmmh... potential for problems and nightmares ahead. Until then, some plots for our d20 Future campaigns!

 

[mythusmage]

Interesting. A while back there were some Japanese who implanted heater elements in strategic places on the body (muscles) of cockroaches. Once the heaters were switched on and off, they could control the way in which the cockroach moved. A primitive form of torture, to be sure, but a more advanced version of what's written here.

Pinotage

Re-read the article. Not the same thing. Nothing is being implanted in an animal, muscle tissue is being grown on a silicate substrate in such a manner as to allow the muscle to act as the motive element in a construct. No torture involved since there is no animal to torture.

In other words, the silicon is an integral part of the arrangment, not an intrusion. Unlike the heaters and the cockroaches.

 

[Pinotage]

Re-read the article. Not the same thing. Nothing is being implanted in an animal, muscle tissue is being grown on a silicate substrate in such a manner as to allow the muscle to act as the motive element in a construct. No torture involved since there is no animal to torture.

In other words, the silicon is an integral part of the arrangment, not an intrusion. Unlike the heaters and the cockroaches.

Yip. Got that bit the first time round. What I was referring to was that the cockroach, by whatever means, was a more capable mover than the rat cell construct, hence more advanced. While I'm sure structures on the substrate could be activate to stimulate the muscle into contraction and hence movement, it's going to be almost pseudo-random, depending on how the muscle grew and where it attached. The cockroach was a living creature as easily controlled and moved as a RF car.

Pinotage

 

[Rel]

Yip. Got that bit the first time round. What I was referring to was that the cockroach, by whatever means, was a more capable mover than the rat cell construct, hence more advanced. While I'm sure structures on the substrate could be activate to stimulate the muscle into contraction and hence movement, it's going to be almost pseudo-random, depending on how the muscle grew and where it attached. The cockroach was a living creature as easily controlled and moved as a RF car.

Pinotage

Yes, but I don't want them to someday inject cockroaches into my body to perform repairs on my vascular system.

 

[Pinotage]

LOL! That's certainly true!

Pinotage

 

[mythusmage]

While I'm sure structures on the substrate could be activate to stimulate the muscle into contraction and hence movement, it's going to be almost pseudo-random...
Pinotage

Pseudo random? How did you reach that conclusion?

 

[Pinotage]

Pseudo random? How did you reach that conclusion?

The movement of the structure is going to depend on where the rat cell heart muscles are attached to the device, how they've grown together, how dense the muscle fiber is, how long the muscle strands are etc. I don't think that these are factors that are currently controlled in this device (or at least it's not explicit in the article). While one could perhaps expect it to move in one direction, it's going to be jerky and wobbly at best depending on how strongly the muscle contracts, how well the stimulus interfaces with the muscle, what forces the muscle movement generates and how they react with the original structure (it's small and light), what environment it's placed in etc.

Perhaps jerky is a better word than pseodo-random, but it boils down to the same thing. It might start out going east, but one particularly strong stimulus might just nudge it north and it'll end up going north-east. I don't claim to know enough about these thing so I'm making hopefully educated assumptions

Pinotage