Earth & Sky

Are synthetic muscles in our future?

Remember the Bionic Woman? She's been updated, and is returning to TV in Fall 2007.

We’re nowhere near the Bionic Woman stage maybe, but synthetic muscles might have taken a step closer to reality.

Earth & Sky spoke with research scientist Victor Pushparaj, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York. His research team created a free–standing, microscopic block of nanotubes – like tiny straws made from a sheet of carbon just a few atoms thick.

Victor Pushparaj: And this block is made up of millions of individually, vertically–aligned multi–walled nanotubes. This nanotube block is analogous to say millions of bamboo shoots in a field.

Nanotubes are the strongest fibers known to science, and they’re also very springy. Pushparaj and his colleagues compressed a block of nanotubes over a half–million times. The tubes held their shape and kept their springiness.

Pushparaj said the nanotubes might someday mimic the soft tissue of a person’s shoulder muscles or stomach wall, which expand and contract millions of times over one’s life. Many years of study are still needed. There’s concern, for example, about the toxicity of nanotubes when they interact with human tissues. Still, Pushparaj is hopeful.

Victor Pushparaj: Nanotechnology can do wonders.

Thanks to the National Science Foundation.

Written by Jorge Salazar

5 Comments for Are synthetic muscles in our future?

1. 1

   Jul 20, 04:46 PM #

   KraftiK says:

   As a baseball fan, I wonder whether they will let pitchers with synthetic shoulder muscles into the Hall of Fame. I suppose they will. I suppose they will let Barry Bonds in too. Our only hope is that Barry will never hit another homer. Maybe he’ll tear a shoulder muscle. But then he’ll probably be the first guy to get a synthetic shoulder, and we’ll be right back where we started….

2. 2

   Jul 20, 04:52 PM #

   ABrading says:

   Steroids… nano-muscles. soon we will be putting a robot in Coopersville.

3. 3

   Jul 20, 04:54 PM #

   crane says:

   fuggeddabout baseball… think what it could be like in football?

4. 4

   Jul 20, 04:56 PM #

   crane says:

   or, didn’t this article mention synthetic stomach lining? what about competetive eating?

5. 5

   Jul 20, 05:00 PM #

   KraftiK says:

   They may put a robot in Coopersville, but lord can only hope they’ll never put one in Cooperstown.