Remote-Controlled Robot to Inspect Your Colon

You might or might not consider this to be good news. Enrico Grasso of the University Hospital Tor Vergata in Rome, Italy, has developed a pill-sized robot that can crawl around inside a patient, searching for signs of cancer. Alastair Jamieson writes in The Daily Telegraph:

Pills containing cameras already exist, but this is believed to be the first that can be controlled after it has been swallowed.

Once the examination has finished, the spider pill exits the body naturally.

It has been successfully tested on pigs but further trials will be needed before it can be cleared for use by doctors.

Elisa Buselli, one of the scientists working on the project that created the spider pill, said: “This should improve the situation not just for the patient but also the doctor.”


Link via Popular Science | Image: BBC News

Comments (8)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

I'm sure the local food bank was just thrilled to receive a enormous flood of canned tomato soup. *eyeroll*

A more varied donation display would have been more useful, but wouldn't have looked as pretty.
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Pablo, that would cut the profits, too. But Campbell's does contribute to food banks; I don't know how much. This is a clever display, but I'm sure a lot of folks took cans off it to buy for their own pantries.
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@Miss Cellenia and Pablo: Even if lots of people took food home for themselves, it raises awareness, something that Campbells donating directly wouldn't do.

@Justin
Can't tell who you're rolling your eyes at... Maybe food banks where you live would be annoyed to get a couple of pallates of the same thing, but the food banks where I'm at would love to have anything. There are times of the year where they don't have enough for everyone who needs it.
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Yeah, anybody who has been to biz school can tell you this promotion is all about selling soup. Fortunately, there are plenty of guilt-filled consumers out there to fall for it.
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Food banks wouldn't mind having the same kind of each can lol. Tomatoes are the cheapest actually (in my local grocery store). My class collected money and bought $100 worth of canned tomatoes and the rest of the class brought in diapers, other canned goods and we collected 3200 cans in the 3 week duration.
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