Dr. James Friend, senior lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Monash University in Australia, is developing a nanobot propelled by a tiny rotor motor measuring about five-millionths of a meter.

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The only instruments capable of measuring such vibrations, though, were spectroscopes--meter-long glass-and-metal optical devices that used infrared light.

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The magic, it turns out, is in that subatomic spray, as the group treated with an electron shower benefited from a polymerizing effect or, more plainly, a bonding of molecules just above the skin's surface that yielded a tough, protective nano-layer measuring between 50- to 100-billionths of a meter thick.

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