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Ingestible Medical Robots Could Remove Batteries From Stomachs (washingtonpost.com)
"A child swallows a battery every 3 hours," reports a new article in the Washington Post. But now, gurps_npc writes: MIT has developed a small ingestible robot to remove watch batteries that kids swallow. It starts out folded up tight and surrounded by an ice sheath. You swallow it, the ice melts, and it unfolds. Then a doctor uses magnets to direct it to the battery, it wraps itself around the battery, preventing it from leaking acid until you pass it — perhaps a bit faster with the doctor using the magnets to guide it down through your system.
Interestingly, the MIT researchers built their proof-of-concept robot using a durable pork casing -- "the same stuff you might find surrounding a hot dog or kielbasa."
Interestingly, the MIT researchers built their proof-of-concept robot using a durable pork casing -- "the same stuff you might find surrounding a hot dog or kielbasa."
The way this little robot is folded and then frozen in ice, reminds me of how the Inuit used to kill polar bears. They would take a long sliver of bone, sharpened on each end, bend it into a "U" shape, and freeze it in blubber. Then they would leave it on the ice pack where a bear would find it, and swallow it. The blubber would thaw in the bears stomach, the bone would straight out and puncture the stomach. The bear would die of internal bleeding.