In news that will surely fire up conspiracy theorists, scientists at Columbia University have created the world’s smallest single-chip system to monitor conditions inside the human body. The chips are tiny…they have a total cubic volume of around 1mm, or smaller than microscopic dust mites, and the researchers have already had success using them to track body temperature changes in mice.
That’s cool, but it’s just the start. The scientists say they see a future where this type of technology can be used to monitor your body’s condition before surgery and during illness, but not quite yet. There haven’t been any human trials of the chips, and researchers say widespread use of the technology to improve health care is far down the road.
You know the words “Bill Gates” are going to come up as this breakthrough gets reported, but the scientists say that these chips can’t be used to spy on anyone. The “motes,” as they call these chips, can only communicate the information they’ve collected with the help of an ultrasound machine. The chips don’t use RF frequencies at all and aren’t capable of it even if they wanted to track you as you hit the snack aisle at the grocery store.
Source: Popular Mechanics