Nanotech Pac-Man Eats Red Blood Cells

Ah, modern technology. This little machine (1/3 third the width of a human hair) has tiny chompy jaws to bite down on red blood cells pumped through it.

The jaws, which open and close very rapidly, deform captured cells, and then, in less than the blink of an eye and almost playfully, let the little things loose. The blood cells travel on, regain their former shape and appear unharmed.

The device, because of its constant munching, bears a strong resemblance to the computer game hero Pac-Man, which also munched creatures travelling along small channels. In this case, the “upper” teeth of the microdevices slide back and forth in piston-like action across the microchannel to momentarily trap individual red blood cells against the lower teeth.

Get it? Me either. But the large image looks like a nice abstract artwork.