There have always been weird things happening when people try to give live demonstrations - but this? It’s weird.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the inside of someone’s body before (legally), but there’s nothing like it in the world.
The ins and outs of the human body is bizarre and also quite interesting.
But I wouldn’t pay to see it.
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Well, that’s if I knew it was going to happen, that is.
However, an audience received the pleasure of seeing inside a man’s body when Pillbot, a pill that contains a camera, was swallowed during a TED talk.
It was when co-founder and engineer, Alex Luebke decided to flaunt the tech which is the company’s latest launch.
A swallowable pill that can revolutionise the healthcare system by showing doctors the inside of a patient’s body.
Luebke was so ready to show the audience what his invention could do he confidently swallowed it up live on stage, which is pretty weird to do.
Thankfully, it was a success and the remote-controlled (a PlayStation 5 controller- hilariously) pill showed everyone what it could do.
Controlled by a Mayo Clinic professor and co-founder, Vivek Kumbhari, it left audiences in awe.
Not only did it show the pill moving through his oesophagus, it also showed his stomach.
Luebke explained: "Since the beginning of the modern era, the only way to really look inside was through rudimentary surgeries.
"Over the past 150 years or so, we've had great technologies that allow us to look from the outside, like X-rays and MRIs. But what I propose and what I'd like us to explore today is looking at micro-robotics inside the human body."
Before the swallowing fiasco, Kumbhari showed off the device as it swam in a small tank of water.
Luebke explained that the Pillbot was greatly reduced from the size of a rugby ball (estimate) to the swallowable prototype is it today.
He said the size it was before was ‘not quite swallowable"’ and now is ‘the size of a small multivitamin capsule.’
This way, it ‘get very similar views as I would if I'd used a conventional endoscope.’
He said after it had finished: "Now, fortunately for Alex, on this brief review, everything is looking normal here. Though if there were a problem, being able to show and discuss with Alex in real-time."
Kumbhari said: "So now that we're done here, PillBot will take its natural course through and out of the body and fortunately for Alex, he'll have no awareness of this, and he won't have to retrieve this capsule."
Luebke replied: “That was yummy, and no, you don't feel anything when the robot moves around inside you."
This little AI bot not only shows you the inside of your body, but it also ‘maps of the entire interior surface of the stomach.’
I’m just glad I didn’t have to swallow it.
Topics: Technology, AI, Health
Britt Jones