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In a new study published in Scientific Reports, investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory report that an ingestible electronic capsule, complete with a capsule-sized antenna capable of receiving a radio signal wirelessly, can safely power a device in the gastrointestinal tract in preclinical models. The new work makes wireless medical electronics for treating the gastrointestinal tract one step closer to reality.
[...] This work describes the first example of remote, wireless transfer of power to a system in the stomach in a large preclinical animal model -- a critical step toward bringing these devices into the clinic," said co-corresponding author Carlo "Gio" Traverso, MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at BWH.
Other medical devices -- such as cochlear implants or neural probes - use a well-established technique known as near-field coupling to deliver power wirelessly. But ingestible devices must be small enough to be swallowed and, moreover, lie a significant distance from the surface of the body, making this technique unattainable for most gastrointestinal electronics. A new technique known as mid-field coupling provides an alternative way to deliver power to deeply implanted devices. Mid-field coupling operates at higher frequencies to deliver power two to three times more efficiently.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @05:37PM (3 children)
Market tiny electronic devices as a yogurt additive for today's successful female executives who want to maintain their GI tract health! Sell expensive yogurt to women! Cut costs by neglecting to add any electronic capsules! Make bank!!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 01 2017, @06:00PM (2 children)
You're waiting for nonobots. Package up half a million little bots in a capsule, take the capsule like a Tylenol, the capsule dissolves, and the nanobots get to work fixing everything. They'll take on the role of any blood cell, as needed, they'll distinguish between benign and malign foreign bodies, and actively fight invasive germs/bacteria/parasites/whatever. And cancer - cell by cell, they'll root out the cancer, and dispose of it.
Yeah, when the nanobots arrive, they can be blended into some yogurt, if you prefer. It won't matter how you ingest them. If preferred, they can be injected instead of ingested.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @06:22PM (1 child)
Completely missed the point, senile old man. I would explain how badly you failed reading comprehension, but explaining things to you is futile since you are incapable of understanding anything. Die.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Monday May 01 2017, @08:16PM
My god, I'm defending runaway...
Yes, his post is mostly orthogonal to your - if that's what we shall call it - point. You do need to catch up on your consumption of popular sci-fi before posting similar rants on this site, though. Now go google nanoprobes.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 01 2017, @06:14PM (2 children)
If you can implant small devices under the skin instead of in the GI tract, there are many more useful applications than merely taking care of your health.
Suppose you can put it under the skin near a high part of the body like the neck or shoulder area. You could charge it at night.
You could charge it at other times -- such as at work -- where the charging would also have the dual purpose of proving that you are in your seat doing your job.
The RIAA would have applications for this. It could, for example, automatically charge your credit card any time you hear any copyrighted music.
I don't know what it would take for the MPAA to do the same for when you see copyrighted motion picture or TV content. Maybe a shoulder high camera.
It could be your national or global ID.
It could let the government helpfully keep track of some of your health and fitness parameters for your convenience.
I'm sure there are other uses. Uses in addition to the above. And uses that arise from the above items.
Who would pay? Would various parties (Google, Microsoft, government, etc) eagerly stumble over each other for the privilege of paying you to use their device?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:05AM (1 child)
And I would like a chargeback for all the crap I had to hear that I did NOT want to hear!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 02 2017, @02:08PM
Your request is being processed. Please hold while listening to this Justin Bieber "music". Press 0 to talk to an artificial insanity robot. Press 1 to be routed to a call center in some god forsaken third world hell hole. Your call is important to us. We understand that you don't want to pay for things you don't want to hear. Our customer service department is ranked number one in optimizing the truth.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 01 2017, @06:19PM
How expensive is this as a treatment or diagnostic procedure? Is it really beneficial over other techniques? Would insurance companies consider it worthwhile to cover it? Is this still considered experimental? Or approved in some countries?
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 01 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
can safely power a device in the gastrointestinal tract
So from an EE perspective I'm cool with mid range power transmission. Not too magical, I can think of some new apps. My phone is lying right now on a Qi charger that requires better than 1 cm precision to transfer power faster than the phone drains it (all those continuous running NSA processes, ha know)
What I'm curious is what a doc does with a little bit of power in your GI tract... I mean, unless I missed something, we're not at the level of doing an appendix removal from the outside in, are we? or... I mean... what is it doing in there?
My son had a biopsy thing where they looked at his stomach wall lining for inflammation relating to a food allergy which he has, but I don't know if technology is at the point where you can skip the anesthesia and biopsy and just swallow a huge pill containing a macro lens camera and bright LED and wifi and power, although in theory maybe? Probably don't need external power for something that limited.
Other than that it strikes me as the stunt of sealing a camcorder in a bag and running it thru the dishwasher. Thats mildly entertaining, probably kinda dangerous and expensive if it fails, I'm sure it would make a fascinating very long youtube video.
So what do you do with more power than a swallow-able lithium battery can provide in a GI tract? Can medical doctors blast ulcers with lasers to heal them, or send in a little robot drill to unclog stones from gallbladders or just what are the docs up to?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:08AM
Maybe make a calcium-based battery whose anode, reacting to digestive juices, degrades into something akin to what a calcium supplement pill would have done...
I get the idea that these things are going to be one-time use anyway.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:09PM
You're broadly describing a capsule endoscopy [wikipedia.org]. Don't know much about them - they're usually ordered/performed/evaluated by gastroenterologists, certainly in the hospital I work at - but such a thing does exist. Upper GI endoscopy (OGD) is not fun and I can't imagine swallowing a half-brick would be much more comfortable.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 01 2017, @06:41PM
report that an ingestible electronic capsule, complete with a capsule-sized antenna capable of receiving a radio signal wirelessly ...
... tastes like chicken?
If that's not tasteless enough (oh the pun) consider the following: I know you can train some women (presumably some guys) to swallow, uh, anything (its fun to practice this skill) but some just can't. Or they say they will, but it goes everywhere but down the hatch, or even worse they start gagging. You know there's going to be jokes and whispering. "Good news for mr XYZ, mrs XYZ didn't need the hyper-miniaturized electronics she had no trouble gulping down the uncooked bratwurst sized previous version, she stuck the whole thing in didn't complain about the taste of the throat lubricant or anything, even licked her lips afterwards" and all the guys in the room are impressed/giggling/want her phone number. I seen some stuff on 4chan, just saying. And now ability or lack of ability at that is going to be a financial medical issue. Imagine having to explain to some dude in India who claims his name is Steve.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 01 2017, @06:48PM (4 children)
As we all know the internet is for pr0n and pr0n drives the adoption of all technology, so obviously, what can be done with something that takes a couple watts of power and can be swallowed (or up the other end?) and end up anywhere along the GI tract doing something with a couple watts of power?
Just sittin here thinking. I guess a weird camera angle is almost too obvious. Would something like a cell phone vibration motor even work or just make the user feel horrible nausea? Um something like a speaker playing 70s pr0n music at a couple watts out, I guess that would be novel? I know you can turn on a very bright flashlight and kinda sorta see the bones in your hand, so maybe some super-bright LEDs... Could really incredibly bright LEDs inserted in the proper position make a rainbow shine out like for bronies or whatever?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 01 2017, @06:59PM (1 child)
Who says it has to go in the north end of the GI tract?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday May 01 2017, @09:13PM
I am unfamiliar with my little pony and was under the impression the rainbow effect already came out of the "south" end. Although maybe that was skittles and unicorns. Well, whatever.
Another peculiar idea, project a little hologram "wrong hole aim a little higher" for those needing glasses or poor vision or its dark. Or if you use the wrong hole anyway it gives a little electric shock to remind you. Although some may enjoy that, both the hole and/or the electric shock. I know a RF burn would be painful, a guy is probably a decent quarterwave antenna around UHF 500 MHz public service band depending on local dielectric constant, electrolyte substances, and insulation level.
I did think up an interesting idea combining accelerometer features and a social media phone app so the phone could auto-tweet a numerical result of just how much you rocked her world, using the accelerometer to measure pounding accelerations and also muscle spasms. I suppose for extra financial revenue the guy could pay to have the app fake the results. You can imagine on a dudes Tindr (grindr?) profile some application integration "Assuming a spherical cow of a woman, XYZ achieved peak acceleration rates of 0.27G and 37 seconds of muscle spasms after 487 seconds of activity of which magnetometer data indicates she was in 27% cowgirl and 52% doggie positions" I could see that having quite an impact on tindr (grindr) swipe results depending on what she likes the most. I suppose to instrument the female (catcher?) performance there's mL swallowed/injected as per camera analysis. I think the MBAs could turn even sex into something as boring as financials spreadsheet. Or maybe this as an internet of things could make financial sheets as exciting as ....
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @07:34PM (1 child)
This is good enough for some fetishes.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 01 2017, @09:17PM
Bulimics would be into it too.
I suppose not all technology is good.
Of course your average "People of Walmart" could stand be improved via a couple years of bulimia.
A strange idea comes to mind. Something either real product or perhaps sci fi plot. Rather than inserting stomach bands and stuff like that, eat a robot pill thing and when it detects you overeat past your diet the more crap you eat the more it vibrates until you're so nausea you puke or swear off ice cream or whatever. Sci fi / hollywood movie plot, we all get them like tapeworms and some naughty hacker cracks them and none of us can eat crazy bioweapon or internet of other peoples things IOT story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 01 2017, @08:15PM
that wireless power radiation will cause some form of cancer.