Snake Robots Will Soon Crawl Around Inside Your Body

[kullatiro]

 Military Snakebot This snakebot is
much larger than the ones that'll be
swimming around your veins/
organs. Courtesy Special Operations
Apps

 

We've seen snake robots and, of
course, tons of surgery robots
(including the weird lamprey-bot ),
but Dr. Michael Argenziano, the
Chief of Adult Cardiac Surgery at
New York-Presbyterian Hospital and
Columbia University Medical Center
in New York, says we'll soon have
fully untethered snake-type robots
that will crawl through the human
body, assisting with all kinds of fixes
and maintenance.
There are lots of easily imaginable
use cases--a snakebot for heart
surgery would require only a small
incision, rather than a wildly invasive
slice for traditional surgery. One day,
reports the AP, they may "be able to
test chemicals or blood in the body,
or even the electrical connections in
nerves." Now we just have to get
past the Indiana-Jones-ooginess of a
tiny robosnake squirming its way
through our bodies.

http://m.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-05/untethered-snake-robots-will-soon-crawl-around-your-body