Artificial aquatic polyp could help clean up oceans

Coral polyps are small, soft creatures with a stem and tentacles that nourish corals and aid the coral's survival by generating self-made currents through motion of their soft bodies.

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Now, scientists from WMG at the University of Warwick, led by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, have developed a 1cm by 1cm wireless artificial aquatic polyp that, apart from cleaning, could be used in medical diagnostic devices by picking up and transporting specific cells for analysis. Their findings are published in PNAS.

In their paper the researchers demonstrate how their artificial aquatic polyp moves under the influence of a magnetic field, while the tentacles are triggered by light. A rotating magnetic field under the device drives a rotating motion of the artificial polyp's stem. This motion results in the generation of an attractive flow which can guide suspended targets, such as oil droplets, towards the artificial polyp.