Caltech researchers have developed a 'robot' made from a single DNA strand that autonomously picks up molecules and moves them to specific places.

The trick is to choose nucleotides that produce specific reactions in DNA, such as zipping (merging) or unzipping (splitting).

As you can estimate how much energy it takes for those actions and the size of the strands, you can customize how quickly the bot moves.

Also, it can take a day for a robot to travel every corner of one of those boards -- efficient, but not very timely.

The team envisions nanorobots Delivering Drugs in your bloodstream when they're triggered by signals or synthesizing therapies in molecular 'factories.'