The idea of a miniature explorer through the human body has been explored and parodied more times than one can count.  Now, science has finally caught up with imagination and, although there is no mention of a shrink ray, a vessel is capable of taking a voyage through the human body (poop jokes aside).  The robot, called ViRob, was created at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and researchers are hoping that it will be able to conduct almost any procedure in a minimally invasive manner.  Cue dramatic music now.

ViRob is pretty skinny for a robot, with a diameter of 1 millimeter (length is unspecified) and is capable of travelling up to 9 mm per second through blood vessels, the digestive tract, and the respiratory system.  Travel is facilitated by external magnetic fields that doctors say will not cause harm to the body.  For those who fear that ViRob is just a locomotive pill, guess again.  It has tiny arms that are capable of grabbing onto walls within the body, allowing it to burrow from blood vessels into organs.

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