This might be a tough pill to swallow, but the future of medicine is all about ingestible sensors. Things like cameras to scope out your bowels and electronics that detect if you’ve taken your medicine (recently FDA-approved, by the way).
Also, swallowable origami. Researchers at MIT have developed a frozen gizmo made of pig intestine that you drop down the hatch. As it thaws in your stomach, it unfolds. Using a magnetic field, a doctor could theoretically lead the device to something you’ve gone and swallowed but really shouldn’t have—batteries aren’t as tasty as they look—and hurry the offending object out of your system.
Theoretically. The researchers have so far only tested the device on a model of a pig stomach. But it’s a fascinating glimpse into the future of incision-free surgery, one propelled in large part by magnets.
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