The Crazy Plan to Use Swallowable Origami to Fish Batteries Out of Tummies

(quaint music)

[Narrator] Welcome to a pig's stomach,

well, a model of one at least.

That red thing flopping around is actually unfolding itself.

It's made of dried pig intestine,

which is pretty darn meta, if you ask me.

MIT researchers developed it because a whole lot of kids

swallow batteries each year.

The idea is to freeze the gizmo and feed it to the patient.

Once it hits the stomach, the origami instrument

will thaw and unfold.

Then the device can stick to the offending battery

with a magnet and remove it from the digestive system.

Theoretically, a doctor could use

magnetic fields to steer the thing.

Theoretically.

If you want to be the first person to test it,

be my guest.

Think robots that move around the digestive system

on their own,

retrieving batteries or even treating maladies.

That's the wonderful thing about

the young field of robotics.

Seemingly ridiculous gizmos, like origami ingestibles,

and barely functional humanoids like this,

may serve a real purpose one day

because if anybody is going to swallow a battery,

it's going to be a barely functional humanoid.

I mean, come on.