john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Meet your new robotic parasite

Tue, 2006-06-06 22:11 -- John Hawks

One of those things that says, "Please stop reading now" :

Doctors currently explore the gut using endoscopes, which have to be fed through the body, or "camera pills" that must be swallowed by a patient.

A pill capable of wriggling through the gut on its own could be a valuable tool, says Andrew Gardner, an independent medical imaging expert at University College London.

Yes, you have to go over to New Scientist to see the picture. It's two tail spines short of a centipede. And it's crawling through pig guts right now. Eeeeww!

"If something this complicated goes wrong, it could be very hard to get out."

Eeeeww!

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.