Edinburgh scientists turn 1980s science-fiction film into 21st-century reality

Tiny robots could be sent inside the brain to make life-saving repairs (Picture: Fred Tanneau) | AFP via Getty Images

In the 1987 comedy film Innerspace, starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, a former US Navy pilot and a submersible are shrunk – using ‘science’ – to a microscopic size and, after a series of unfortunate events, end up being injected inside an unwitting passerby who then becomes the target of an evil plot. Humorous adventures and escapades ensue.

At the time, the idea that anything like this was remotely possible was strictly in the realms of fanciful science-fiction. However, it appears that real-life engineers at Edinburgh University are – pretty much – turning that fiction into reality.

The researchers have developed magnetic nanobots which can perform complex tasks inside the body in a way that could “open new frontiers in medicine”. The bots, which are injected in their billions, are apparently able to carry out surgical repairs and deliver drugs to precisely the right place. It is thought they could be used to treat, for example, potentially fatal bleeds in the brain.

OK, so no human beings have been shrunk to microscopic proportions, but give ‘science’ another 40 years and almost anything is possible.