YOU won’t find it powering a Formula 1 racing car, but it’s still a world
first: a motor consisting of a single molecule that’s been designed from
scratch. Almost all life depends on nature’s molecular motors—components
in cells that turn chemical energy into physical movement to help transport
substances around the cell. But Ross Kelly and his colleagues at the Eugene F.
Merkert Chemistry Center at Boston College, Massachusetts, have invented an
artificial molecular motor.
Their invention is a rotor that turns on a stator—the static part of
the device—just like an electric motor. These two components are…
