Swimming Endoscope

Endoscopic surgery has used tubes for years, but now Japanese researchers have built a probe that can swim through the digestive tract:

The device, nicknamed the "Mermaid", is about one centimetre (0.4 inches) in diameter and 4.5 (1.8 inches) long and has magnetic driving gear that allows for precise control of its direction and location.

Doctors use a joystick to control the capsule's movements, watching them on a monitor screen. It can be swallowed for examination of the stomach or inserted rectally for the colon.


Robots roaming freely through the human body. What could possibly go wrong?

Link -via Geekosystem | Photo: AFP/Jiji Press

Comments (6)

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Newest 5 Comments

As a long sufferer of intestinal cancer and having had HUGE, HORRIBLE THINGS shoved into every orifice, I, for one, welcome our new poop-shoot robot overlords.

But until it can also take tissue samples, it's not likely to be used much.
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Beautifully lit, great editing, decent sound...
Written by a slow twelve year old.

Had to stop at the four minute mark and induce vomiting. This guy's ready for network, and that's the worst insult I could think of without swearing.

So much effort with so little result.
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umm wait so is this supposed to be a really BAD knockoff of Dr. Horrible, without the singing, or decent acting, or even a $3.00 budget?

Wow, umm Im trying to think of a positive and the only one I can come up with is "NEXT".
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It looks like an expanded version of a series of web videos featuring the same character. (The point of said series was that the guy WAS a superhero, but kind of inept and lazy and utterly full of himself. Kind of like Captain Amazing, but without the corporate sponsors...)
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