Will nanotechnology soon allow you to 'swallow the doctor'? By Jacopo Prisco, for CNN Updated 1548 GMT (2348 HKT) January 30, 2015
(CNN) - Imagine a swarm of microscopic robots, so tiny that a teaspoon can hold billions of them. They are ready to be injected into the most delicate areas of a human body -- the heart and the brain -- to 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.