WEBVTT

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Scientists aren't just interested in making robots which look like us.
科學家不只對製造出長得像我們人類的機器人感興趣。

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They wanna... want them to get right under our skin, too.
他們想……也想要讓機器人進入到我們的皮肉底下。

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Bring on the nanobots -- miniature medics and pharmacists able to get right to where they're needed, even inside our own bodies.
有請奈米機器人——它們是一群迷你的醫護人員和藥劑師，能夠準確抵達需要它們的地方，甚至是我們的身體裡面。

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In this week's Make, Create, Innovate, Nick Glass discovers that while these little guys may be small, they are extremely powerful.
在本週的《製造、創作與創新》單元中，尼克．葛拉斯發現，儘管這些小傢伙可能個頭不大，卻是威力十足。

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When we think of robots, we think of factory floors and science fiction movies.
當我們想到機器人，就會想到工廠廠房和科幻電影。

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Or, as we've shown you on past episodes of Make, Create, Innovate, the Roomba vacuum cleaner, or Bob the security guard.
或者，就像我們在之前的《製造、創作與創新》單元中曾介紹的吸塵器 Roomba 或警衛鮑伯。

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In these underground research labs in Zurich in Switzerland, the approach has been radically different --
位在瑞士蘇黎世地底下的這些研究實驗室，裡頭的研究方向卻是截然不同——

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robots so small, so miniature, they're barely visible to the eye and able to go places almost beyond our imagination.
機器人如此之小、如此微型，肉眼幾乎看不見，而且可以去到一些我們幾乎想像不到的地方。

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We're making micro- and nanorobots that are guided by externally generated magnetic fields for use in the human body.
我們製造微型以及奈米機器人，由外部產生的磁場來導引，運用在人體內。

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Brad Nelson is a mechanical engineer that likes to think small -- very small.
布萊德．奈爾森是一名喜歡往小處思考的機械工程師——非常小的地方。

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He's a pioneer in a field that's only existed for the last decade or so -- nanorobotics.
他在一門過去十年左右才問世的領域中是一名先驅——奈米機器人。

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[To] give you an idea of how small these are -- if I had a teaspoon, I could fit about 3 billion of them in a teaspoon. So, ...
讓你瞭解一下這些東西有多小——如果我有一根茶匙，我可以把大約三十億個這些東西裝進這根茶匙裡。所以說……

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Three billion? It's kind of unimaginable.
三十億個？有點難以想像。

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It is kind of unimaginable, yeah.
的確有點難以想像，沒錯。

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Well, the first challenges were how to make these things move.
首先要面對的挑戰就是如何讓這些東西移動。

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The inspiration comes from nature, the E. coli bacterium in particular, which is propelled along by a rotating tail, or so-called flagellum.
靈感來自於自然界，特別是大腸桿菌，它靠著一根會旋轉的尾巴推進，即所謂的鞭毛。

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Now, we can't make that motor. We don't have the technology for that.
目前我們無法製造出那樣的馬達，我們沒有能做到那種程度的技術。

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But, what we brought in were some lessons we'd learned about magnetic fields and using magnetism to move these things.
但是，我們引用了從磁場中學到的一些知識，利用磁力來移動這些東西。

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So, we actually take these flagella and we magnetize them,
所以說，我們確實採用這些鞭毛的運作機制，並加以磁化，

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and then we have a special rotating field -- a special type of magnetic field we generate -- which allows them to swim.
於是我們就有了一個特別的旋轉場域，一個我們製造出來的特殊磁場，這可以讓他們游動。

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Having cracked propulsion, Nelson and his team worked on refining how the nanobots moved,
解決了推進方式後，奈爾森和他的團隊開始研究優化奈米機器人移動的方式，

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how they danced -- a waltz, orchestrated on a nano scale.
它們跳舞的方式，像是在奈米的規模上編排跳華爾茲。

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The nanobots are all manufactured in ultra-clean rooms like this, specially lit for the purpose.
奈米機器人全都是在像這樣的超淨室內製造生產，為了這個用途有特殊照明。

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Machines to maneuver them about are also being designed and built.
用來操作奈米機器人的機器也在設計和建造中，

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The target market is health care.
目標則是鎖定健康照護市場。

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What you see on the screen here is an image through our ophthalmic microscope of an artificial eye, and in the middle of that is what we call a microrobot.
你在這個螢幕上所看到的，是一張透過眼科顯微鏡看一只人造眼睛的影像，位在正中央的就是我們所稱的微型機器人。

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It's about a third of a millimeter in diameter, about a millimeter or so long. So, very, very tiny.
它的直徑大約是三分之一毫米，長度大約是一毫米，所以說，它非常、非常小。

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So, this particular device [is] made to carry drugs.
這個特殊的裝置是為了運送藥物而打造的。

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And so, we can move it to any location on the retina, and then as it sits there, cause it to diffuse drugs off of it to [a] very particular location.
所以我們可以將它移動到視網膜上的任何地方，然後趁它固定在那邊不動的時候，讓它釋出藥物到一個特定的定點。

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As well as our eyes, Nelson is targeting our hearts.
除了我們的眼睛，奈爾森也鎖定心臟。

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An operation to repair damaged heart tissue is already planned for later this year.
修補受損心臟組織的手術已經列入了今年稍後的計畫中。

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And from one vital organ to another, he hopes his machines could be used in the brain.
從一個維生器官到另一個重要器官，他希望他的機器能運用在腦部。

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So, we've looked at applications, for instance, in deep brain stimulation and implanting electrodes in the brain, and we've looked at putting catheters within the vasculature of the brain.
舉例來說，我們也探究了應用在腦部深層的刺激以及在腦中植入電極，我們也研究過在腦部的血管中置入導管。

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And this could just be the beginning for Nelson's nanobots.
這可能只是奈爾森的奈米機器人的牛刀小試而已。

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He believes they could help us environmentally, something microscopic to tackle. something massive, like an oil spill.
他相信這些機器人能在環保方面幫上忙，用微小的東西來解決巨大的問題，比方說漏油事件。

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These are very small.
這些機器人非常小。

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If we can create swarms of them that can go out, they can cover a broad area.
如果我們可製造出一堆能派上用場的微型機器人，他們就能涵蓋廣闊的區域了。

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Water treatment, environmental cleanup, where you might be able to put hundreds, thousands, millions of these devices
改善水質、環境清潔，你也許可以在那些地方放上幾百、幾千、幾百萬個這種裝置，

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and have them swim through polluted water, catalyze pollutants, and then collect them [back] later back.
讓他們游過污染的水域，催化污染物，稍後再將他們回收。

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That's a particular application that's exciting and that we're certainly focusing on here.
那是一種讓人感到興奮的獨特應用，而且我們肯定會鑽研這一方面。