ODD, BUT...

It’s “gross, but great for minimally invasive surgery,” said Shaunacy Ferro in PopSci​.com. A neurosurgeon at the University of Maryland School of Medicine is developing robotic “maggots” that could “eat away at a brain tumor from the inside,” using an electrocautery tool. The remote-controlled robo-maggots could be a big help to brain surgeons, who need MRI machines to distinguish between healthy and tumor tissue during surgery. “You can’t exactly do a full brain surgery on someone when they’re locked away in a cramped scanner.” The big challenge is finding a way to control the maggots without an electromagnetic motor, which would “interfere with the magnetic field that’s integral” to an MRI’s imaging process. The latest prototype, now being tested on pig and human cadavers, uses a system of pulleys and springs to navigate the brain.