Engineers develop expanding pill

This seemingly pointless invention actually has a multitude of applications in medicine.\n

Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) continue to amaze us with their new developments. This time they created a pill that, when ingested, transforms into a hydrogel sphere upon reaching the stomach. Engineers claim that the pill can retain its shape during several months. If it needs to be extracted before it disintegrates on its own, the patient needs to drink a calcium solution that will reduce the pill to its original size and allow it to leave the patient’s body.

This development has several potential applications. The most obvious one  - transportation of drugs or small devices, such as cameras, through the patient’s body. According to scientists, these expanding pills can also be used for weight or temperature control. They also noted that the device has been successfully tested on pigs. In the future, it will also be tested on dogs and humans.