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Robot Invented To Crawl Through Veins
Slatterz writes "Scientists from Israel's Technion University have unveiled a tiny robot, made using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology, purportedly able to crawl through a person's veins in order to diagnose and potentially treat artery blockage and cancer. The little robot — with a diameter of just one millimeter — has neither engine nor onboard controls, instead being propelled forward by a magnetic field wielded on it from outside the patient's body."
I for one welcome our miniature robotic clots!
You just got troll'd!
has neither engine nor onboard controls
Doesn't a robot traditionally have to have some form of self controlled motion? From the description, this is just a human etch-a-sketch.
For what it's worth, I've also created the robotic sport of the future. It consists of a round, air filled bladder. This robot has no motor control of its own but it can be moved by applying forces with your foot. I intend to patent this and make a fortune. No one will play regular soccer once they can play robo-soccer.
there will be a number of robot jokes being made from this point forward, all in the same vein.
...Martin Short.
Resistance is futile.
The summary confused me, so I looked it up, and it is true. Veins bring blood towards the heart. Arteries bring blood away from the heart. I always thought blood flows pretty fast, so the robot would need quite a bit of magnetic force to go against the blood friction. If it finds a clot, can it ram its way through like a battering ram? That would be cool.
So this has all the functionality of a 1mm steel ball bearing.
What will they think of next?
Shoot, they could even shrink themselves and travel through the body in their tiny shuttle.
How does a robot moving though one's vein "diagnose and potentially treat artery blockage"? Wouldn't it need to be traveling though the arteries to do that?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/875277.html http://t3.technion.ac.il/more_details.php?id=76
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
the magic school bus!
All the fun of meth with none of the side effects! Great!
no... wait...
It's the other way around.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
.... but you don't want to see how they take it out.
Interventional cardiologists and other physician specialties already use a veritable swiss army knife of tools on catheter tips. You already can feed all sorts of balloons and stents and scrapers and other tools into the body by pushing them into place with a catheter. This "robot" is moved around with a magnetic field rather than a plastic filament.
I wonder what new techniques and procedures this will make possible...and if the incremental improvement in outcomes will actually extend lifespans any...
They do something wrong with the magnetic field for a second, lose track of it, it gets carried to your brain and you stroke.
Not realistic? Well, when you've had a catheter yanked out of you without having had the balloon deflated first like I once did because the nurse fucked up, you'll learn to expect these things. A golf-ball sized object pulled through your urethra tends to leave a memory.
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So how is this different from this? Oh, yeah, there's no way to retrieve the robot if it gets stuck.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
TLDR
Just in time for our robotic fighter of fat clogged arteries, McDonalds is now rolling out a collection of 1/3 pound burgers to compete with the likes of Hardees. McDonalds may have well made the best fast food mushroom and swiss burger of all time. Now if only I could get a 44oz soda with that!
Robot, save me!
This is my sig.
I hope it doesn't malfunction and get stuck or something. All you need in that situation is a nice mechanical clot...
http://www.tenjou.net/
Didn't Wesley Crusher already invent this?
Once they're done they do an MRI to extract the robot. Gotta love magnetism
Are you in a computer lab with separate IPs for each machine? Just the act of posting that shit was incredible.
Hats off to you.
Egads!
That hurts all the way across the internet!
A golf-ball sized object pulled through your urethra tends to leave a memory.
That may be the understatement of the year in my books!
You have my sincere sympathy. Damn!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Since we've been dreaming of medical Nanorobots since Rachel Welsh got my (grand)dad hot in Fantastic Voyage. The above robot is hardly the first, nor likely the robot to get into common use. This a by now a small industry on Medical Nanorobots and on how to control or use them, for instance this this paper on Medical Nano Robot Control from my Nanotech Feed @ Feed Distiller.
Israel invents some pretty incredible stuff.
Nope, had different shell accounts. I have access to lots of labs too but that requires actually walking into one...
well I was in the hospital for weeks after getting hit by a truck.. shattered pelvis, skull fracture, internal injuries... honestly though it was memorable it was no where's near the most painful thing I experienced.
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Why use a robot when you can use natural magnets!? Check out Stereotaxis. It's amazing what this company has pulled off in cath labs already.
Dare I ask what the most painful was?
The bill.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
This is a part. Like a lock-washer. I suspect it won't be used in robots, either, but rather will be moved by a person with a magnet.
Everything gets called a robot, these days. If I buy my six year old nephew a crappy remote controlled car from Radio Shack, I can hand it to him and tell him it's a robot.
He'll object, of course, since he's not stupid. I'll point to news stories about the stuff being used in Iraq and elsewhere and say, "see -- all remote control dohickies are robots."
Just because he's not stupid doesn't mean editors/reports/promoters/technologists/and the general public aren't.
withstanding, i don't want those little buggers ANYwhere NEAR my ass... Or, I WILL take the name of thy bot in vain...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This would seem like one of those ideas that was great on the drawing board but horrible in real life. I just wait for the first doctor performing a surgery/procedure with this to say "Ah, hell, it just went into his brain". If they were to use these for clearing arteries (i.e. high pressure) it wouldn't take much of a disturbance in the controlling magnetic field for it to slip away into someone's brain. As for me, I'll stick with good old catheter operations (you know, if I ever have a heart condition).
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.
I'd say its a tie between learning to walk again and withdrawal from demerol.
The barium enema wasn't much fun either though.
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