There’s a Microscopic Robot On This Penny That's Built to Go Inside You…

Key Takeaways

television shows like black mirror put us in a robotic dystopian future but what if instead we have a real-life microscopic robotic future where they explore my digestive system which is more awesome actually let's introduce microscale magnetic tumbling robots or micro tongues these four to eight hundred micron long tiny BOTS are designed to deliver a specific drug to a specific place in your body imagine taking a pill filled with these instead of just filled with powdered chemicals see when you take a normal pill the medication just sort of dissipates all over the place hopefully hitting the prescribed target but some things are harder to find think a one centimeter peptic ulcer in a 10 meter gastrointestinal tract it becomes a needle in a haystack and these robots are designed to navigate your gastrointestinal haystack the human body is vastly complex and the robots will be facing tough resistance toward their destination so mobility inside of your body is key as you can see there isn't much room for a battery or wires inside of the bot which is fine because they're actually powered from the outside using magnetic fields the idea is once you've ingested these little guys there are two magnetic ends which are embedded with neodymium-iron-boron particles are paired with a constantly rotating magnetic field and then the micro tongues can be set in their course to tumble over the bumps and trenches that exist inside your body the tumbling motion of these robots plays an important role because the tumbling allows the bots to be in constant contact with the surfaces inside of you the robots are versatile and malleable and in most cases have autonomous motion capabilities but it's not actually easy designing things that are this small Engineers have to understand forces that only exist on a scale of microns like Van der Waals forces which are a little complicated to explain right now but are an attraction between molecules that could along with electrostatic forces stop these robots in their tracks the micro tongue researchers were able to model those forces in their lab and create a tumbling solution which keeps the robots moving once they roll their way to a problem the bots can release the drug they're carrying and hope make you all better but scientists at Caltech are thinking about a slightly different medical micro solution they're working on smart pills which are also microns in length but instead of just tumbling around to deliver drugs they are microchips that serve as wardens of our body flowing through to monitor our health from the inside things like pH and temperature pressure and sugar concentrations could all be relayed back to a doctor to help with diagnosis no matter which of these tiny things find their way into the medical market the future is definitely small special thanks to domain.com for sponsoring this episode of seeker domain.com is awesome affordable reliable and has all the tools you need to build a new website start sharing your ideas with the world on a professional website domain com can fulfill all your website needs they offer common dotnet domain names and intuitive website builders they have over 300 domain extensions to fit your needs from dot Club two dots pace two dot family or pizza take that first step in creating an identity online and visit domain com hey there macro people do you like learning about all things science go ahead and subscribe and while you're here check out this interview we did with a researcher who's trying to make one shot that gives you all the vaccines you could ever need so how long is 400 microns exactly well it's about one-third the size of an average grain of sand thanks for watching everyone