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Researchers Build Water Soluble Chips
angry tapir writes "Researchers in the U.S. have developed integrated circuits that can stick to the skin like a child's tattoo and in some cases dissolve in water when they're no longer needed. The 'bio chips' can be worn comfortably on the body to help diagnose and treat illnesses. The circuits are so thin that when they're peeled away from the body they hang like a sliver of dead skin, with a tangle of fine wires visible under a microscope. Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart like 'an electronic pericardium' to correct irregularities such as arrhythmia."
Does this mean self heating food containers might be made biodegradable? :o
"Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart..."
As long as they make it look like bacon...
To show the technology, Rogers rolled up his sleeve during his talk and, using a microscope and an overhead projector, revealed a circuit stuck on his arm. It looked like a clear tattoo, with a spaghetti-like mass of wires embedded in the surface.
Right, nice, but is it a circuit that actually does something?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Like stabbing somebody with an icicle.
The tin foil hatters will have a field day with this.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Well, it's a good thing the human body doesn't consist primarily of water
Most of it is contained by cell membranes. Also, water's not the only solvent. And from the summary:
in some cases dissolve in water
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
You never heard of sweat then?
First word of my post: Most
Please wait five minutes and troll again.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
"Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart like 'an electronic pericardium' to correct irregularities such as arrhythmia."
Ok, once in place, I agree this is less intrusive than nowaday's pacemakers. And potentially more precise than their single electrode pair.
But if in order to get there you have to actually reach the heart to wrap them around, this, is catastrophically intrusive. This alone would be a no-go compared to the current pacemaker installation (through veins, basically a benign operation)
Like in many articles today, the idea and design are great, but authors feel compelled to add in the end a dreamy and ridiculous future application that basically spoils the paper.
I still think the affair is good. But now I also think the author is not really serious.
Herve S.
I wonder when it becomes feasible to have surveillance (mic and or camera) so small it can be sprinkled, and when you don't need it anymore it simply dissolves.
While in fact espionage is what pays for it :).
We can only hope health care improvements will be at least a side-effect.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
Quote from the summary:
in some cases dissolve in water
Which I also included in my original post.
Please wait five minutes and troll again.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Soluble....that word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Solubility is not a dichotomy, with complete solubility on one side and complete insolubility on the other. There are degrees of solubility, and the substrate the circuit is put on to can be chosen for its solution rate.
That occurred to me as well.
Perhaps people will get their governments under control, so that the People decide what gets researched... and the government must settle for the scraps.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Two words - better education.
If People are not educated, decisions are made by mainstream media propaganda.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
...and now your editors have apparently been outsourced to india and have only a tenuous grasp on the english language.
Your comment is racist and offensive. Most Indians actually have an exceptional grasp on the English language. For instance, they know to capitalise proper nouns like the names of countries or languages.
You seem somewhat lacking in your use of English, how's your Hindi?
I'm not sure it's prudent to wait on the primary beneficiary of a poor educational system to overhaul that system.
A good education can be had by researching online, but the value of this is regularly naysaid by internet trolls. Counterintuitively, the public seem to put much stock in their opinion of it. The result is that "everyone knows" information cannot be trusted, simply because it can be found predominantly online.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
As a veteran of boring science conferences, I love that to make his point "he produced and then ate a tiny RF oscillator 5 millimeters across."
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Most of it is contained by cell membranes. Also, water's not the only solvent. And from the summary:
I was making fun of the tragically amusing misleading headline less than the merely inaccurate summary.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
After your 30th birthday?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Fair enough :)
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I've never heard of a sweaty heart -- unless that's the name of a band.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Once you've developed a soluble circuit, the rate at which it dissolves is no doubt a parameter that can be tweaked to yield the desired lifetime.
The fact that the circuit dissovles away is a *feature*, as in soluble sutures. We can already implant electronic circuits in the human body, but I believe the idea is to create circuits you don't need to remove with a second round of surgery.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Hey look more bad news. Cool. Like Dragisha said, for those of us who don't get oppressed by this, maybe we can hope for some societal advancement when all the internment camps are liberated.
In before "Mark of the Beast"
I know rtfa is taboo, but now we don't even rtfS? "and in some cases dissolve in water when they're no longer needed." So medical circuitry that could work for some time, then when it was no longer needed start to dissolve and get flushed out of the system instead of another surgery to remove it.
It seems to me that this is just a few more minor discoveries away from Amy's talking tattoo. I mean, the medical applications may be important and all, but come on; I'm sure everyone here knows that practicality isn't really what drives innovation...
What? Oh, never mind.
I see a dissolving circuit very problematic, you have to shut it down in a way that no interference with the heart is performed during dissolution. Stem cell therapy seems easier :)
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
It amazes me to see the amount of FUD /. readers are willing to indulge in the face of new technology. Yes, it sounds a lot like some terrible thing you learned to fear from reading sci-fi novels or something. Oooohohhhhhhh. Might as well quote the Bible while you're at it.
It ain't oppression until it's oppression. As of this moment, it's a cool toy.
Just design it to out-live the intended use window. For example: patient is scheduled for 2 weeks of monitoring, calibrate the circuit to dissolve in 4 weeks, then at the last monitoring session send the shut down command and let the thing sit inert for a couple weeks while it dissolves. Much less invasive than having to remove the implant, and no need to worry about it failing early (at least no more than any other implanted circuit).
It broadcasts the message: "Drink More Ovaltine!".
Similar circuits could one day be wrapped around the heart like 'an electronic pericardium' to correct irregularities such as arrhythmia."
Soluble... That word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Well, it's a good thing the human body doesn't consist primarily of water.
soluble
/sälybl/
Adjective
(of a substance) Able to be dissolved, esp. in water: "the poison is soluble in alcohol".
"Researchers in the U.S. have developed integrated circuits that can stick to the skin like a child's tattoo and in some cases dissolve in water when they're no longer needed.
Seems like it's used properly to me.