Edible computer and electronics

Post Reply New Topic

Do you think edible computers or edible electronics generally could be a thing in the future?

Ya mean....popping your cell phone into your mouth?

What possible need would there be for THAT?

If you were stranded at sea in a life raft you might be desperate for food. But you would also need your device for communication.

Edible electronics, probably not. Biodegradable computer chips, very likely if they can be built non-toxic. We have so many chips that have built in obsolescence already. Many of them are not recycled.

What is meant by edible? Nano-bots small enough to swallow? Perhaps. Nano tech is already used to make silicon chips with techniques that operate on that scale. Designer molecule are being engineered on that scale for medical use and mechanical/material/chemical usage. A clock is a kind of computer by some definitions. A clock can be made entirely of wood. Wood can be swallowed if ground up and mixed with things like breakfast cereal (added fiber).

I once took medicine in a capsule that was made of titanium. A laser was used to drill a hole in one end and the medicine would slowly leak out over time at a precise rate. This was a new “slow release Ritalin” at the time. The capsule itself was not digestible but it could be swallowed. It “passed through the system” (if you know what I mean).
Embedded medical devices such as pacemakers with microcontrollers are already in use, some can report status and history wirelessly, and be queried and adjusted with a radio signal. Hearing implants are similar.
It isn’t unreasonable to envision some of these technologies being combined (called convergence).

wikipedia - Nanorobotics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanorobotics


Nanomedicine: Promising Tiny Machine for the Healthcare in Future-A Review

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3243873/


Picture of ant holding a tiny gear 199

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Adv ... _331485670


Smallest computer

https://www.popularmechanics.com/techno ... rain-rice/

I can't think of a situation in which anybody would get much happiness out of eating a computer. But if somebody's figured out how to make them edible, no doubt the marketers would know how to make people believe they'd like to eat them.

Facebook certainly knows how to eat my system resources.

https://www.popsci.com/computers-are-poisonous/




https://www.wired.com/2008/12/ingestible-chip/

There is a difference between 'edible' and 'swallowable' . . .


Battery-powered, swallowable cameras the size of a large pill have been on the market since 2001.  About a dozen companies make such capsules to take pictures of the esophagus, small intestine, and colon as the capsules move through the gastrointestinal tract -- offering a less invasive alternative to endoscopies and colonoscopies.  And in 2012, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration cleared for human use a silicon chip the size of a grain of sand that can be embedded in pharmaceutical pills to monitor whether people are taking prescribed drugs as they should.

•••

Ingestible sensors would give doctors direct, real-time access to the complex chemistry present in the GI tract while it operates normally with food and liquid in it, something not currently possible via standard tests like stool studies or endoscopies.  Such sensors could probe the gut’s proteins, electrolytes, enzymes, hormones, and metabolites -- plus the trillions of bacterial cells that influence many aspects of human health.  In the stomach, imbalances in the levels of gastric acids, digestive enzymes, hormones, and more can indicate disorders, such as ulcers, inflammation, or cancer.  Short-chain fatty acids in the colon are a signature of its health. The small intestine carries a similar complex mixture.  Makers of ingestible sensors want to dig into this trove of information.


Read the Complete and Unedited Article  HERE .

I think there will be an increasing number of medical devices you swallow.

I doubt you should be chewing them.

And I don't expect to eat any for their good taste.

Edible means you would be able to eat it. That would probably damage whatever it is. There is some work being done on tech you can swallow though. The big issue is the battery - you cant safely ingest battery acids.

https://www.embs.org/pulse/articles/tec ... n-swallow/

How about electric food that changes flavour as you eat it?

Biodegradable computers would certainly be a step towards sustainability.

One thing they have done with ingest-able tech is to provide the power from outside the body. Radio waves can pass through you.

I wish they had had something more targeted when my mom was dieing of cancer. Maybe some kind of swallow-able technology will be the solution to that.

Right now my daughter is dealing with MS. Targeted nano-technology might help some day.

Parkinson’s? Nano-tech to seek and destroy Lewy-bodys and alpha-syn proteins?

Swallow-able computers. HHOS (ha ha only serious).