Science: "This edible sensor could reveal what our gut microbes are up to"

Short article

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/edible-sensor-could-reveal-what-our-gut-microbes-are

 

My gut response? Seems fart oo unlikely tumm-y.

 

Groan. That's a post so inedible it's hard to stomach.

 

Hmmm. Sounds like food for thought.

"Mmmmmm.... Sensor-licious."

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Actually, I think this is pretty interesting, although I'm not sure how much can be extrapolated from measuring just oxygen, CO2, and hydrogen.

It might be interesting if a pill like this could sample the microbiome in some unreachable place, like the center of the small intestine, and return it for analysis. I kind of doubt that on-board analysis would be possible, then again - people are playing video games on what would have been considered supercomputers in the early 1990's.

 

I'm feeling a little guilty that I've not responded to the study seriously, so:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-017-0004-x

A human pilot trial of ingestible electronic capsules capable of sensing different gases in the gut
Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh (corresponding author ) et al