A high-tech equivalent of an infinitesimal wrench can manipulate the tiniest of particles, including a single living cell. The laser system—dubbed a fiber-optic spanner, the British word for a wrench—uses flexible optical fibers to move microscopic particles in any direction by nudging them with photons. Scientists at the University of Texas (Arlington) developed the technique and have used it to rotate human muscle cells without harming them. The researchers, who reported their work in the journal Optics Letters, say the system might one day be used to examine embryos or to judge malignancy by a cell's response to being rotated.
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