REVIEW >> This Little Mermaid can explore your intestinal tract

What you are seeing here is the Mermaid. Yes, it is a little one, but not the one from the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.


No, this one is an endoscopy device designed by a team of researchers from Ryukoku University and the Osaka Medical Collage, both in Japan. This two-inch long, half-inch in diameter device can be programmed to take photographs of the stomach or colon.

It can be controlled by a joystick, and can snap two photos per second. I would imagine that doctors can figure out what your digestive pain is. Just don�t ask how you get it inside of you. Let�s just say that if the doctor gives you a choice, then swallow it.

You know what this reminds me of? Fantastic Voyage, an adaptation of a classic science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. That, or comparable eighties film with Dennis Quaid and Martin Short known as InnerSpace. In both films, a submarine-like vehicle was shrank to microscopic size and then placed inside someone. I saw an episode of Phineas and Ferb which explored this idea yet again.

Hey, if you don�t have a shrinking machine, then you might as well do the same thing by remote control.


http://gizmodo.com/5814740/this-mermaid-swims-through-your-digestive-tract