[tt] Artificial muscles

[Bryan Bishop]

Tony Jones over at the orions_arm mailing list brought this to my 
attention:
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn12844
- excerpt follows:

Ray Baughman a physicist at the NanoTech Institute at the University of 
Texas in Dallas, US. Baughman says he has built such a device made of 
a "shape memory" alloy of nickel and titanium. The metal is coated with 
a platinum catalyst and placed in a device that allows methanol to be 
drawn along the surface. Exposing the surface to air causes the 
methanol to be oxidised, which heats the alloy and makes it bend in a 
pre-determined way. Cutting off the methanol supply lets the alloy cool 
and causes the alloy to its original shape. Baughman says the device 
can generate stresses 500 times greater than human muscle and believes 
further significant improvements should be possible.

http://tinyurl.com/3yru48
http://nanotech.utdallas.edu/personnel/staff/baughman.html

Fuel Powered Artificial Muscles. Ebron, V. H.; Yang, Z.; Seyer, D. S.; 
Kozlov, M.; Oh, J.; Xie, H.; Razal, J.; Hall, L. J.; Ferraris, J. P.; 
MacDiarmid, A. G.; Baughman, R. H. NanoTech Institute, The University 
of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA. Science (2006), 311 (5767), 
1580 - 1583. (abstract) (full text)
-- behind a paywall, sadly.

- Bryan