Robotic Capsule To Crawl Through Intestines

gonzo_bozo writes "New Scientist has a story about a capsule that can be swallowed and will crawl through your intestines with tiny legs made of shape memory alloy."

Comments

How useful could something like this be

[KarmaOverDogma]

for supplanting or replacing a full intestinal exam to deal with things like Crohn's disease, spotting colon cancer early, and other ailments where early detection and/or prevention could save lives?.

A lot, I hope

.

It' a funding plea

[DrSkwid]

The usual hype of "X to do Y" when X is nowhere nearly doing Y.

I've had multiple anal endoscopes and they are f'kin painful so anything that can better that I will be happy about as I can look forward to more in the future
(thanks Milk Marketing Board - see my sig).

Re:It' a funding plea

[silicon not in the v]

I've had that twilight anesthesia when I had a broken wrist. It was stuck in a bent position and the doctor had to sort of "break" it loose so he could set it in the correct position to put the cast on. It was an interesting experience. Things get kind of fuzzy and dizzy and you don't really know or care much about what's going on around you, but you don't really go all the way out.

I hadn't heard of the crawling pill yet. I had just heard about the Given Imaging pill that just gets pushed along by your normal intestinal movement while filming and transmiting video.

And don't worry about the link--even though we are discussing items emerging from the GI tract, this is a goatse-free post.

On a serious note

[tod_miller]

They use the memory of the material to manipulate the legs back in locomotion. Originally the cameras used the bodies own peristalsis to move down.

Why not mimic this in the campsule, and have 4 coated tracks that create a surface 'catapillar' type wave and propells it along.

4 of them means you can turn it and keep it guided.

This might be safer and not have any sharp edges.

*prays to god of ascii art that this works*

__n__n__n
(_________\

_n__n__n_
(_________\

n__n__n__
(_________\

Where n is the rib on the track that deforms the rubber seals.

These guys must find it hard to pick up chicks - so what do you do? I design things that burrow into your intestines [or more /. - burrow up your ass].

mmmm maybe that approach would work on some women!