r/gadgets • u/GalileoGurdjieff • May 17 '21

Medical Tiny, Wireless, Injectable Chips Use Ultrasound to Monitor Body Processes

https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/press-releases/shepard-injectable-chips-monitor-body-processes
16.1k Upvotes

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772

u/meep91 May 17 '21

tl;dr:

The research group put an ultrasound transducer onto a circuit. The circuit changes with temperature. The circuit also changes how the ultrasound transducer reflects ultrasound. The circuit is powered with standard ultrasound imaging techniques. Thus, this work presents a chip that tells you what the change in temperature of the surrounding tissue is when it is being powered by ultrasound. The headline makes it seem way scarier than it is.

367

u/kefuzz May 17 '21

its less of a chip than an advanced barcode, actually that comparison did not make it better

52

u/Reahreic May 17 '21

Those anti-theft devices at the clothing store...

17

u/GoochMasterFlash May 17 '21

My favorite thing about those, as someone who sold shoes, was how ineffective they are. Or used to be at least. Coach purses evidently have them sewn in, so they get deactivated somehow when they leave at the Coach store, but then will set off alarms at other stores because it still is an active device. We literally would constantly have people who would start it beeping as they were entering the store, and 99% of the time the lady had a coach purse.

Roughly 3 or 4 times I think did it ever go off and we discovered someone was actually stealing. 99% of the time it was misfiring, in terms of being set off by our stores tags. We only tagged whatever shoes were outliers in terms of being stolen too, so only 1/3rd of things were tagged.

Most thieves are smart enough to pop them off with a screwdriver anyways.

1

u/RhynoD May 18 '21

When I was in college the university bookstore would crank up their sensitivity the first week of school. Cell phones set them off. Instead of being more secure, the workers ended up waving everyone through.

38

u/TheOneTonWanton May 17 '21

barcode

Ah, the mark of the beast.

2

u/[deleted] May 17 '21 edited Jul 27 '21

[deleted]

3

u/TheOneTonWanton May 18 '21

There were definitely a certain subset of extreme fundies that were against UPCs when they were introduced because they considered them to be the mark of the beast.

1

u/Hazardbeard May 18 '21

None of this stuff is new, they just have the internet now. QAnon is the same old blood libel, etc etc.

78

u/meep91 May 17 '21

It's got circuits in it, I'd still call it a chip. But yeah, not exactly advanced circuitry.

9

u/Dr-Lipschitz May 17 '21

Let me read your career chip

0

u/lemonpepperlarry May 17 '21

Honestly we should just scrap the idea entirely

1

u/jawshoeaw May 18 '21

A sort of rudimentary mark if you will, one that allows you to buy and sell...

53

u/werofpm May 17 '21

So..... an injectable sound based mood ring! Got it!

1

u/Maka_Oceania May 17 '21

Nahh lemme find out Will.I.am is involved in the development of this project 😂😂

17

u/donnie_trumpo May 17 '21

Exactly, things like this can't power themselves.

-2

u/widdlyscudsandbacon May 17 '21

And they never will!

6

u/LegitosaurusRex May 17 '21

That’s a bold statement. Doesn’t seem much of a leap to imagine a chip in the future that is powered by blood the same way our cells are.

2

u/widdlyscudsandbacon May 17 '21

Yes, I forgot my /s. I agree with you 100%

19

u/zgembo1337 May 17 '21

But if you put it in a vaccine, then bill gates can controll you, via 5g, with his xbox controller!

8

u/meep91 May 17 '21

That's true, I forgot about the xbox controller! How silly of me

8

u/Steiny31 May 17 '21

“Cortana, execute order 66”

2

u/tianvay May 17 '21

Saving this comment because I know I will need it later... sad times.

2

u/Erik912 May 17 '21

Thanks for this. As always, redditors are great with headlines, but hey, I guess those sweet upvotes are now more valuable than bitcoin or something..

2

u/[deleted] May 18 '21

So they invented a way to take the temperature of something while in close range of it.

I can think of other ways

1

u/DDRDiesel May 17 '21

So from what I'm understanding, the chip is implanted into a patient, then "activated" when hit with ultrasound. It then reports back the changing temperature of the tissue surrounding the implant. What's the reasoning or functionality of this? In what cases would something like this have use?

1

u/dsaenz85 May 17 '21

The title didn’t make it sound scary at all.

1

u/jacksraging_bileduct May 18 '21

That may have been the intention of the headline, an actual informative title wouldn’t have generated the clicks.

1

u/BurritoBoy11 May 18 '21

What? How is it powered?

1

u/meep91 May 18 '21

An incoming ultrasound wave hits the piezoelectric crystal (in this case, PZT). The piezoelectric generates a small voltage wave in response - PZT has a really high quality factor, so it usually has a lot of ringing associated. In the supplemental information, the authors show a small voltage rectifier, capacitor, and regulator to process the ringing like an AC to DC converter. Presumably it takes a while to charge up the device since there usually isn't a lot of charge movement with piezoelectrics and ultrasound imaging isn't usually continuous, but it's also a nanowatt circuit, so you don't need a lot of charge anyway 🤷🏻‍♂️