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Tuesday February 27, 2007
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The Chogoku Shimbum Online and Pink Tentacle are reporting that researchers at Ritsumeikan and Shiga Universities have developed a two-centimeter metal and plastic robot that can be swallowed or inserted via a tiny incision and then controlled electromagnetically from outside the body.
In addition to taking internal photographs and delivering medicines, this "micro internal robot" could, eventually, perform surgeries inside the body, It's unclear if all this will happen via remote control or through a pre-preprogrammed set of instructions. Information can be delivered to external computers via a 2 mm cable that remains attached to the robot.
For now the thumbnail-sized bot (2 centimeters long, by one centimeter wide) is still a prototype, but I can imagine people one day swallowing it, having their gallbladder invisibly cut away and then wondering, "If there's no scar, do I really have to pay the bill?" [Via: Pink Tentacle]
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