Will nanotechnology soon allow you to ‘swallow the doctor’?

They are ready to be injected into the most delicate areas of a human bodythe heart and the brainto deliver drugs with extreme precision or work like an army of nano surgeons, operating from within.

If it all sounds like science fiction, that’s because it is: the plot of the 1966 sci-fi classic Fantastic Voyage revolves largely around this concept.

In the film, four people board a miniaturized submarine to enter the bloodstream of an American scientist, left comatose by the Russians as a result of a Cold War quarrel over the technology. They only have an hour to remove a life-threatening blood clot before they return to full size. The crew manage to escape the body in the nick of time via a teardrop.

But reality has a way of catching up with our fantasies, and nanotechnology is yet another field of science that bears that promise.

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CNN