A tiny camera will be swallowed by patients and inspect their intestines

Spider Bot Cam Spider bot, spider bot, doing whatever a spider ought BBC

People who dislike having medical cameras snake through their body on the ends of long tubing now have a fun alternative. A new remote-controlled spider bot can scuttle around inside the colon or intestine and perform a medical inspection instead.

Rest assured that the experience sounds much more pleasant than Neo's icky encounter with an electronic bug in The Matrix. Italian scientists have tested the device inside pigs, controlling the spider bot wirelessly to diagnose serious conditions such as cancer.

Once finished with its exploration, the device exits the body "naturally," according to the Telegraph.

Pill cameras have come up before, and a German device allowed physicians to steer a pill by moving a magnetic remote control over a patient's body. But the spider bot concept seems to kick the camera pill up a notch. Fantastic voyage ahoy!

[via the Telegraph]

5 Comments

AndromedaStorm

It would feel very weird having a robotic bug crawl inside of you like you have a live bug in you.

Actually, we have tape worms, mites in our eyelashes and under our skin frequently.

But this does answer the question, "What crawled up your ass?!"

I wonder if used ones would be cheaper...

I don't like how this title was worded.

*D Ace Lee*____Bobcat ftw____

You wouldn't feel it at all. There was a boy i was reading up on that had went to sleep one night and had a visitor, i spider. It crawled up his head and laid eggs inside his ear. He didn't notice for a long time, even after the spiders hatched. All he said was he heard a constant scratching sound to his parents.


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