Skip to Content

Robosurgeon

Accident victims and injured soldiers could be saved at the scene by tiny wheeled robots slipped into their abdomens and controlled by surgeons hundreds of kilometers away. In experiments conducted at the University of Nebraska, the robots carried cameras fitted with light-emitting diodes to illuminate the abdomens of pigs and used radio transceivers to beam back video images. In the field, robots would carry different tools so that surgeons could stop internal bleeding – the main cause of traumatic death – by either clamping, clotting, or cauterizing wounds. “We want to perfect a family of little robots that paramedics can insert into a patient through a small incision,” says University of Nebraska-Lincoln mechanical engineer Shane Farritor, who is working with Dmitry Oleynikov of the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Farritor expects finished prototypes within two years.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.