Bugbot, a robotic tourist in your intestines

There are already wireless pill cameras that can send back images of your innards whilst on holiday there, and separately developed pills containing robots that aim to take up hiking in your gizzard. Now scientists at Carnegie Mellon University are working on a robotic camera that combines those two tastes that taste great together. It'll still be another couple of years in development, but the prototype is an 800nm six-legged robot capable of inchworm-like intestinal locomotion (Kylie Minogue would be proud), small enough to be attached to the pill camera already available. Doctors would be able to then control the movements of the camera once ingested, enabling a much finer degree of photographic control inside the patient. Very cool, though we don't need to get all Innerspace, ourselves — we'd be happy to settle for something we could drop behind the couch that could tell us where our Treo stylus has rolled off to.

[VVV @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

I see a new trend coming on..spending hours exploring our beautiful innards.....now if they could just make a swarovski crystals covered one and give to P.Hilton...

[Daniel Wright @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

A few of these have been patented by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. They even take biopsies. Snip, snip!:
http://www.patentlysilly.com/archives.php?catID=3200&subcatID=3210

[iceberg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

All I'm thinking of is that nasty bug they stuck in Neo, back in the first Matrix movie.

[Boba @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

800mm?? That's 31 inches, umm I don't know if I want to swallow that.

[lcd @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

dude #3 read my mind. get out of my head.

so, can i rent ad space out on the inner lining of my intestines?

[Morten Skogly @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

#4 You beat me to it. 800mm, thats not at bug, thats a small dog crawling around in your intestines :)

[aprodite @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

800nm = 800 nano meters, it's NM, not mm ;)

[yujean @ Dec 19th 2005 1:21AM]

he was my professor! and honestly, he is such a pimp!