Photo: Magnetic Microbes CREDIT anatomyblue Source IEEESpectrum.
from IEEE Spectrum
By SYLVAIN MARTEL / OCTOBER 2012
ate one crisp October night in 2006, a hospital technician in Montreal slid the limp body of an anesthetized pig into the tube of a magnetic resonance imaging machine, or MRI. A catheter extended from a large blood vessel below its neck—a carotid artery. Into the catheter, a surgeon injected a steel bead slightly larger than the ball of a ballpoint pen.
In a room next door, my engineering graduate students and I held our breath. We were testing a program designed to manipulate the machine’s magnetic forces, which would guide the bead like a remote-controlled submarine. Or so we hoped. . . . Read Complete Report