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."

Re:Attempting to purge mental image...

[stupidsocialscientis]

So, assuming it exits your body the same way most things that we ingest leave our bodies, do the feet and legs simply fold under the pressure of the rectum and anus on the way out? If not, "squeezing one out" might not be the way to go for elimination. Nothing quite so satisfying as pooping a metal centipede.

For those places...

[Black Parrot]

...your gerbil just can't reach.

Re:For those places...

[TykeClone]

Now Lemmiwinks is out of a job!

This never gets old..

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I, for one, welcome our intestine crawling overlords.

overlords?

[khanyisa]

Shouldn't that be insidelords?

Excellent...

[keiferb]

Now all we need is a shrinkification ray so that we can climb into the tiny little capsule and crawl around in peoples' bodies.

Re:Excellent... [ob Simpsons]

[kooshvt]

Unshrink you?! Well that would require some sort of a REbigulator, which is a concept so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh out loud and chortle.. but not at you O holiest of gods with the wrathfulness and the vengence and the bloodrain and the "hey hey hey it hurts me"

Alien invasion.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

Will this inconviently burst through your chest?

Re:Alien invasion.

[dtfinch]

Yes, but not before it mistakingly pushes through one of your already problematic stomach ulcers.

limiwinks?

[Anonymous Coward]

They really should have come up with a good acronym for L.I.M.I.W.I.N.K.S.

In proper perspective,

[BaltikaTroika]

Forget the tiny alloy legs, it's the 12kg razor-wire covered thorax that does the damage.

BaltikaTroika

I'm the first beta tester...

[NanoGator]

... and the first to ask "What crawled up your butt?" will get a knuckle sammich.

Re:I'm the first beta tester...

[drinkypoo]

Humans are animals. Read the fine dictionary. And eat my shorts. Trying to ruin a perfectly good joke is one of the few things worse than ruining your own joke.

Robot Capsules for Life

[Madcapjack]

What it's called is a diet pill.

Reminds me of...:

[drakyri]

The Magic School Bus!


It had to be said....

Re:Reminds me of...:

[dtfinch]

I remember that one.

In all seriousness, though...

[amcox]

....how weird is that going to feel?

Re:Worries

[drinkypoo]

I'm thinking that they're probably going to be disposable, and administered only in the hospital anyway.

Re:Worries

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I'm thinking that they're probably going to be disposable

I *sure* hope so. Otherwise count me out...

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

.

Re:How useful could something like this be

[Zapper]

I've got my hopes on this sort of thing eliminating the current method of prostate exams.

Re:How useful could something like this be

[mdielmann]

On the other hand, this will be quite expensive, for two reasons.

First, it's new technology, and the research will have to be paid back. This will go down in time.

Second, the examination cost will have to pay for the therapy of seeing 30 feet of asshole. That can only go up over time...

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

[Detritus]

You need better drugs. I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy in the hospital and I don't remember anything between getting an injection and waking up in the recovery room.

Re:It' a funding plea

[DrSkwid]

good luck with those general anaesthetics

I'll keep the pain thanks, I'd rather be sure I was going to wake up

Re:It' a funding plea

[Detritus]

It wasn't a general anaesthetic. I was still conscious during the procedures. I just don't remember any of it. I believe they called it twilight anaesthesia.

Re:It' a funding plea

[DrSkwid]

oh, well thats a new one on me

thanks

I was sedated but not by enough apparently

Re:It' a funding plea

[stupidsocialscientis]

twilight is often a combination of valium and versed. the fun thing is when people are coming out and they are conscious, they are unable to form long-term memories, and thus ask things like, "what time is it? when i am i going in for the procedure?" and then ask the same thing 12 seconds later.

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 [spie.org] that just gets pushed along by your

The war on drugs.

[tod_miller]

Paste a picture of gaosty next to a picture of this robot on CNN [wow, goasty on CNN, /. contribution to society!], looking like something off the Matrix... and I bet people will think thrice before smuggling something up thier ass again!

*thinks about human nature*

Hmmm this might *increase* anal drug traffiking, remember kids, you don't know where that has been, think before you smoke, ingest, inject it!

I guess it will have to run linux, and have wifi and bluetooth, I just do not want to see any hobbiest

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!

Test subjects

[Rufus88]

Testing was accomplished using contestants on "Fear Factor".

this could have such evil applications....

[rubberbando]

It would be like something out of a movie. An evil organization could insert these things into its members or just about anyone they wanted to keep under control with the threat of the device killing them if they do not coorporate.

Just a thought...

Re:this could have such evil applications....

[silicon not in the v]

An evil organization could insert these things into its members...

OWW, geez, and I thought the intestinal application of this sounded painful.