has designed an ingestible, expanding pill

that can monitor the stomach for up to a month,

potentially tracking cancers, ulcers

and other GI conditions.

Soft and squishy, it's made from two types of hydrogels,

the combination of which enables the pill to quickly swell

while remaining impervious

to the stomach's acidic environment.

If the patient needs to remove the pill,

they can simply drink a solution of calcium ions

containing more calcium than whole milk

that triggers the pill to quickly shrink back

to its original size and pass safely out of the body.

This hydrogel based design is softer, more bio-compatible

and longer lasting than current ingestible sensors,

typically made of hard plastics or metals

which are quite stiff in comparison

to the gastrointestinal tract.

The inner material of the design

are super absorbent hydrogel particles

that are used in commercial products such as diapers

for their ability to soak up liquid quickly.

The second protective hydrogel layer was designed

to encapsulate the fast swelling particles.

The outer membrane is made from a multitude

of nanoscopic crystalline chains, each folded over another

in a nearly impenetrable gridlock pattern.

To test the inflatability of the design,

researchers dumped the material in various solutions

of water and fluid resembling gastric juices.

They found the pill inflated

up to a hundred times its original size in about 15 minutes,

much faster than existing expandable hydrogels.

To test the pill's toughness,

the researchers mechanically squeezed it thousands of times

at forces greater than the pill would ever experience

for regular contractions in the stomach.

They found the design is both soft like tofu or jello

but extremely robust.

Finally, to show their ability

to track environmental changes in the stomach,

the researchers embedded

within their design a small commercial temperature sensor

which allows them to accurately

and remotely track activity patterns within the body

for up to 30 days.

Down the road, the researchers envision the pill

may safely deliver a number of different sensors

to the stomach to monitor for instance pH levels

or signs of certain bacteria or viruses.

Tiny cameras may also be able to be embedded into the design

to image the progress of tumors or ulcers over time.