(Sigh) Microscopic Paul Rudd only exists in the Marvel universe… unless?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Imagine shrinking robots down to the size of a speck of dust. That would revolutionize processing… manufacturing… pretty much everything!
Well, shrink rays we have not, but the micro-robots are here!
Maya Lassiter and team at the University of Pennsylvania built a micro-robot that navigates based on temperature. It’s powered by light, and as small as a cell!
The best part? This micro-robot is perfect for a micro-budget! It’s cheap!
Imagine what these micro-robots could do for microsurgery, drug delivery, and wound healing!
They could even make Marvel movies bearable again.
Reference: Lassiter, M. M., Lee, J., Skelil, K., Xu, L., Hanson, L., Reinhardt, W. H., … & Miskin, M. Z. (2025). Microscopic robots that sense, think, act, and compute. Science Robotics, 10(109), eadu8009.