A treat from inside: the medical robot

If you’re a "reader" type, then you should definitely know the masterpiece of Isaac Asimov, Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain . The book narrates the adventure of a submarine that is shrunk very much and injected in a human body, with the mission of destroying a blood rennet in the brain of a person. Science fiction you will say. Well, yes, but if we take a look of the latest research of the Ritsumeikan University’s professors, the point in which those facts could become reality don’t seem so far anymore. 

Yes, researchers from Ritsumeikan University and the Shiga University of Medical Science have developed a miniature robot prototype that is inserted inside a body via a small incision, and can be remotely navigated to the desired portions of the body, in order to treat them, take useful picture from the "inside" or take samples from the infected tissues.  This robot is not quite microscopic, like in Asimov’s book, measuring 2 cm in length and 1 cm in diameter. It can be maneuvered trough the body using a system based on magnetic field. A slim 2 mm cable is used to retrieve the video images, and can also be a safety measure for extracting the robot in case something goes wrong.

This small robot navigates through your body and treats you from inside

The idea of having this thing inside me isn’t pleasant at all. Reminds me of the scarabs in the "Scorpion King" movie. But they were tested on animals and achieved great results, so, considering it can save us from complicated operations, using them on humans may be a great idea indeed

Source: Chugoku Shimbun (via Engadget)