Watch it go: World's smallest self-folding origami bird that reminds us we were promised nanobots at some point Measuring just 60 microns across – about the width of a single strand of human hair – the world’s smallest self-folding origami bird is a feat of engineering. All it takes is a zap of positive voltage to get the tiny sheet of atoms to automatically curl up into a bird-like shape in 100 milliseconds. It’ll continue to hold its …
That is easy. The fertilized egg came first. It had to in order to be the first chicken, Nano or naught. Individual organisms do not evolve. Whatever was before the chicken was a proto-chicken. The crossing of the fowl lineage during mating resulted in enough mutation to cause the embryo in the egg to differ from its progeny. True they could probably still successfully mate but regardless, the chicken was ready to be hatched. Now Jungle Fowl run rampant over the earth from the remote jungles of the world to the golden arches in the biggest cities. Mines the one with the well-ticked bird book in the pocket.
imagine making tiny ICs in multiple layers that fold into themselves. potentially make circuit boards that self fold into a grain to reduce distances between contacts.
it could even perhaps interleave as necessary with thermal conductors - to get heat out from between the layers.
It looks like they can make the hinge with an accuracy of a few atoms.
Perhaps this is achieved in another way already - IC design is a black art to me, tbh.
may already be done with DLP - not sure how the moving mirrors are created.
I was thinking NASA applications, solar cells and antennas that unfold and other things of that nature. You'd need to scale up, of course, bigger than 60 microns.
Electronically tunable SMT inductors and capacitors would be another possibility, with little micro-thingies changing the physical dimensions of the reactive component. Might make it possible to create something with a wider operating range than using a varactor diode.
Then there are medical uses, maybe artificial muscles and eye lenses and so on.
now I'm reminded of that Dr. Who episode where someone gets a brain mod that opens up a 'hatch' in your forehead that exposes your brain when you clap, shuts it again with a 2nd clap.
and, can we build them with FPGA or microcontrollers, to perform complicated autonomous motion? You know, ACTUAL nanobots!
Oh do fuck off with your anti-Mars-exploration bollocks.
Have humanity's efforts to understand Mars negatively affected you personally in any way? Or are you just one of those inward-facing idiots who thinks anything beyond the realms of LEO and GEO isn't worth the bother, and feel the need to force your opions down everyone's throat at any and every opportunity?
FFS at least keep it to topics vaguely related to Mars. Which this is not.
Some folks prefer to stay in mummy's basement, risking the odd paper cut folding cranes. Others prefer to see if there is a new species of crane over the next mountain.
Me, I like to think about folding mountains. Spotting cranes is just gravy.
BTW, it's not a tank. It has no defensive capabilities.
every currency unit spent on space exploration indirectly benefits EVERYONE, and you're getting something for that money, as opposed to tossing it into a black hole of gummint waste, fraud, and abuse.
History has shown that the invention of the integrated circuit, microprocessors, and even [to some extent] cell phone technology has been driven by the need to miniaturize and run on limited power.
Large scale integration was VERY expensive at first. ONLY NASA had a budget and a need for it.
I recommend a study on the Apollo nav computer, how it worked, why it was built entirely with 'nor' gates, what kind of read-only and read-write memory tech they used, how THAT stuff was actually made [that's right - hire women who are good at sewing to string the beads, so to say] and so on. I read about it on wikipedia and other places, found it to be pretty interesting, even intriguing, just what it was they did to make those things work "back then" and how far weve come in our technology since then, MUCH OF WHICH was driven first by space exploration...
also http://www.righto.com/2019/09/a-computer-built-from-nor-gates-inside.html for a fun read about early computers used by NASA.
(they would have not built it "that way" were it not for the limited capability of ICs at the time they designed it, but once working, did the job for which it was tasked, and did it well enough.
"Mad Science" (to the tune of 'Weird Science')
"Large scale integration was VERY expensive at first. ONLY NASA had a budget and a need for it."
That was Small Scale Integration, or SSI .... in the early 1960s defense and aerospace used all that could be produced, a couple million dollars worth. By the mid 1960s, space and defense only used a third of production (a total of over a third of a billion dollars/year worth already!), and SSI had been joined by MSI (Medium Scale). By the time LSI came about with things like 1K RAM chips and early microprocessors (call it 1971ish), the vast bulk of production was for commercial projects.
They built the AGC "that way" because that was the only way they could be certain it would survive what little we knew about radiation in space. By the time Apollo flew, we had vastly better computer capability on the ground. Hell, some people already had better computers on (or under, or next to) their desks!
As one with diabetic retinopathy, I'd volunteer to test it in one of my eyes but I'll be dead before there are actual medical applications being tested.
While we're waiting, perhaps we need an ElReg unit to replace 'the width of a human hair'. Maybe a 'Boris' (Donald' wouldn't work - his hair has too much product).
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