| As of mid-April, Mr. McLurkin and his colleagues had | | | | made much larger or smaller, depending on the |
| built six new robot ants in two marathon sessions; he | | | | desired application." |
| eventually hopes to have 21, which would be the | | | | The work, which appears in the June 6 online issue of |
| largest robotic community in the world to date. Each | | | | Nature, was led by Rudolf Jaenisch, a member of the |
| has a pair of tiny treads powered by a battery and | | | | Whitehead Institute and a professor of biology at |
| two motors taken from vibrating beepers. The | | | | MIT. His colleagues on the work are from Whitehead, |
| robots are guided away from objects they hit and | | | | MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, the BATTERY |
| toward illumination sources by antennae and light | | | | COMPAQ 432306-001 Broad Institute of MIT and |
| sensors, and411462-442 they also have mandibles | | | | Harvard, and Harvard Medical School. |
| powered by a third motor to pick up bits of | | | | High blood pressure is a common risk factor for heart |
| "food"-quarter-inch balls of crumpled brass. Each | | | | attacks, strokes and aneurysms, so diagnosing and |
| micro-robot is named after one of Mr. McLurkin's | | | | monitoring it are critically important. However, getting |
| female friends or relatives (Cleo is one of his | | | | reliable blood pressure readings is not always easy. |
| grandmothers), since all worker ants are female, he | | | | Researchers from Cambridge University and MIT will |
| explained. | | | | collaborate with students, industrial partners and |
| Turning into the Hudson, the race concluded with a | | | | other organizations to explore the challenges of a |
| 13-mile straightaway to the finish at the Battery on | | | | networked wireless world. The Pervasive Computing |
| the southern tip of Manhattan. Sidelnik was bothered | | | | Community will work on issues involved in letting |
| by symptoms of hypothermia and high waves | | | | computer users be genuinely "nomadic" and to be |
| created by a speedboat race, and Klugman closed | | | | able to access information everywhere. Researchers |
| the gap. The New York Times reported that Klugman | | | | will also work on developing new computer vision and |
| edged out Sidelnik at the finish. | | | | speech processing technologies that will make it |
| The dime-sized prototype contains 34 reservoirs, | | | | easier for people to interact with computers. |
| each the size of a pinprick and capable of holding | | | | Visits to the doctor's office can provoke anxiety that |
| about 25 nanoliters of chemical in solid, liquid, or gel | | | | distorts blood pressure readings, and even when |
| form. "But there's room for over 1,000 reservoirs, | | | | accurate, such visits provide only one-time snapshots |
| potentially thousands more if you make [the | | | | of the patient's condition. To overcome these |
| reservoirs] smaller," said Dr. Langer, the Kenneth J. | | | | obstacles, MIT engineers have built a wearable blood |
| Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical | | | | pressure sensor that can provide continuous, 24-hour |
| Engineering. He added that "the BATTERY FOR | | | | monitoring. |
| 432306-001 reservoirs and microchips could both be | | | | |