What could possibly go wrong?

The following report is from Slash Gear:

Slime and robots don’t immediately come to mind as a natural pairing, but alas, the scientists are back at it once again. CNET reports that a new surgeon is on the block, and it’s a bit “slimier” than the one at the clinic. The experimental Reconfigurable Magnetic Slime Robot, which is still undergoing testing at the Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is capable of slithering its way into the difficult-to-reach cracks and crevices of the human body and swallowing objects along the way. 

In theory, this could replace certain kinds of surgeries, specifically any variety of surgery that might be used to remove objects from a patient’s body. For example, it could replace the need for certain laparoscopies, though it sounds like its most immediate use case is to help clear patients’ airways quicker.

Made of a non-Newtonian fluid consisting of borax and a few other ingredients, the Slime Robot can either become hard when touched rapidly, or it can soften when touched slowly. Beyond that, the innovation is remarkably durable. Its versatility gives it the ability to “self-heal,” as well, and it can even be chopped apart and put back together. Strangely enough, the unusual robot can also conduct electricity, meaning it can also serve as a quick repair for busted circuitry, in theory. By comparison, other magnetic fluid-based robots can’t do quite as many feats, which is what sets the Reconfigurable Magnetic Slime Robot apart.

Robotic slime traveling through plastic intestine
Courtesy: CNET

Not only does the 1.5-millimeter Slime Robot have the ability to reconfigure itself once broken apart, but it is also able to act like a solid, unlike other magnetic fluid that is usually made of iron oxide nanoparticles or a similar magnetic metal. According to the engineering team’s research paper, released on March 25, this Reconfigurable Magnetic Slime Robot is made of non-Newtonian materials, making it capable of “grasping solid objects, swallowing and transporting harmful things, human motion monitoring, and circuit switching and repair.”

The main issue with magnetic fluid is that it can’t be remotely controlled, and it doesn’t have any cameras attached to it (though a small camera could technically be inserted into the slimy mass), which means that doctors would need to move it through a patient’s tracts by manipulating magnetic fields to which the particles inside of the slime are attracted. Another challenge that comes with the territory of pushing magnetic slime through a person’s stomach tract, for example, is that magnetic particles inside of the slime can be incredibly toxic, which was also addressed in TechXplore’s report on the same robot. However, a silica coating in the slime itself can theoretically be made to act as a buffer between the magnetic particles and the human body.

Currently, the Slime Robot is still in the R&D phase. However, in the near future, it could become one of many high-tech tools that doctors use in order to simplify otherwise difficult surgical procedures.


[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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3 Comments

  • Sometimes, as you manually push your chin up off the floor & your gaping mouth shut, recover from the self-inflicted faceslap trying to jar the brain to make sure you heard the latest insanity correctly…all one wants to do is go home. (And you just know that if you try warning the positivity crowd, they’ll just slap you down….erase the slip into ‘negativity’ & hater-mode memory, coarsening that ol’ pesky conscience picking up a truth …and rush on toward destruction singing ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ and Kum-ba-yah. Not like Bible’s gonna stop ’em.)

    Since the ‘black goo’ stuff has been coming out of the Fifth Column/La Quinta trad cat dialectic propaganda thing, I tend to think it’s something attempting to distract Christians, or to terrify them into laxity & unwise union, ‘usefulness’, to the ends of the worldling globalists & their agendas. This version for the ‘scientific’ minded & social justice….’well, there might be some good use for it…therefore…..’ ….hesitating to destruction.

    This medical stuff is looking more & more like the old pagan amoral pursuit of knowledge at the old library of Alexandria where they were doing vivisections & the Lord only knows what else before the Lord allowed its destruction by the little people. Like what the nazis were doing, & they moved behind the Iron & Bamboo curtains under their puppet managers & propagandists, craft. While the guiltiest & most responsible infiltrated & blended themselves into American liberty still retaining the traces of Christian liberty without the ‘negativity’ of vigilance, diligence & warring against sin, the flesh & the devil, exploited it to great wealth & its own destruction while financing what was going on in the darkness there, then here.

    We’re back to the Dark Ages of Romish hospitals run like the double death nun of India, ‘Mother’ Teresa who eased peoples’ slide into Hell & collected vast amounts of money for Rome, yet denied pennies-worth of true healthcare that could have saved the lives of multitudes; & where people fought with all that was in them & until too weak to do so…against entering: for those who entered those ‘centers of care’ rarely, if ever, exited them. Where they clung to pagan notions such as Galen’s in the name of ‘science’ clean up into the nineteenth century.

    2 Peter 2&3 in living color!

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