A nano-submarine? WHAT?

I absolutely found this article fascinating:  chemists have made a molecular nano-submarine.

It runs on light.

Yeah, and when I read that, I said "WHAT"?  (Roughly translated, that means "How does it work and what is it good for?")

Well, let's read a bit about what it actually is and what it does:

Single-molecule Submarine: team makes light-driven "nanosubmarines"

"Each of the single-molecule, 244-atom submersibles built in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour has a motor powered by ultraviolet light. With each full revolution, the motor’s tail-like propeller moves the sub forward 18 nanometers.

And with the motors running at more than a million RPM, that translates into speed. Though the sub’s top speed amounts to less than 1 inch per second, Tour said that’s a breakneck pace on the molecular scale."

OK, that's how it works. So what's it good for?

"Rice’s [University] researchers hope future nanosubs will be able to carry cargoes for medical and other purposes."

What about cancer tumor cell torpedoes?

Well, it's an idea.