10/14/2011 PERMALINK
Researchers have created robotic/prosthetic muscles with 1,000 times more power than previously materials. The researchers show that the new yarn can spin an paddle 1,800 times heavier than itself at 590 revolutions per minute. They demonstrate how a simple device based on this concept could be used to mix two liquids on a microfluidics chip; in a fluid mixer, a 15-micrometer-wide yarn rotated a paddle that was 200 times wider and 80 times heavier than itself at up to one rotation per second. Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, led the work.