You’re putting WHAT inside me?!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Intestinal surgery can lead to life-threatening fluid leaks. Ultrasound is a tool that images our insides, but it has a hard time distinguishing fluids. For example, normal stomach fluids versus abnormal bleeding.
Jiaqui Liu and a team from Northwestern University wanted to find a solution!
They created tiny, water-based gel stickers embedded with paper-thin metal disks. These stickers are placed INSIDE your body! When the sticker touches acidic fluids, like stomach acid, it SWELLS. When the sticker touches basic fluids, like pancreatic fluids, it CONTRACTS. The sticker size can change by more than sixty percent! These changes move the metal disks together or apart, which can be detected by ultrasound.
They tested these stickers in pigs and were able to monitor the small intestine, stomach, and the pancreas! Afterwards, the sticker and disks dissolve in the body, leaving NO TRACE!
Except for some beautiful pictures! Of, er, fluids.
Reference: Eacock, A., Rowland, H.M., van’t Hof, A.E. et al. Adaptive colour change and background choice behaviour in peppered moth caterpillars is mediated by extraocular photoreception. Commun Biol 2, 286 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0502-7