SAN FRANCISCO, 4:31 AM, THU JUL 24 | 26 POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS | tips@io9.com | RSS

NASA Wants To Slice Your Brain With Nanoknife

Carbon nano-tubes aren't just gorgeous, they might also save your brain one day. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is teaming up with a cancer center, City Of Hope, to develop a new minimally invasive type of brain surgery using carbon nanotubes. Researchers hope that these sharp-tipped tubes, 50,000 times narrower than a human hair, can deliver cancer-fighting agents directly to the brain. Tests in mice found the nanotubes were non-toxic and could deliver actual genetic information to the brain. Here's an image of the first "nanoknife," developed by NIST and University of Colorado in 2006. [ScienceDaily]

2:30 PM on Thu Jan 24 2008
By charliejane
2,871 views
9 comments