Fantastic Voyage

In the 1966 film The Fantastic Voyage, a submarine and its crew shrink down to microscopic size and set sail in the body of a stricken scientist to repair his damaged brain. While that’s still the stuff of science fiction, today’s researchers have built a tiny swallowable sensor that can take a voyage through the gut and provide vital information about bowel health. The device is the size of a pill and measures the levels of gases in the intestine, transmitting the data back to a smartphone in real time. Tests have already revealed some surprising new secrets, such as example showing that the stomach releases powerful oxidising chemicals to break down food – something that wasn’t previously known. Although it still needs more work, the device could be a useful tool for monitoring people with gut and digestion problems, or even be used to diagnose diseases such as bowel cancer.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image by RMIT University/Peter Clarke
• Research from RMIT University and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in Nature Electronics, January 2018