Microscopic lifesavers

MICROSCOPIC machines that can kill cancer cells in one minute by drilling into them have been created by scientists.

The ‘‘nanomachines’’ are motorised molecules activated with ultraviolet light, making them spin up to three million times a second.

The motor is a paddle-like chain of atoms that can be prompted to move in one direction. The nanomachines took only a minute at their fastest to drill through the cell membranes, according to the results published in Nature.

They are so small that 50,000 of them could sit across the diameter of a human hair.