Yes, Scientists Built the World's Smallest Implantable Chip. But Don't Freak Out.

Scientists at Columbia University have created the world's smallest single-chip system—complete wireless electronic circuits that can monitor conditions in the body.

The chips, called "motes," have a total volume of less than one cubic millimeter, making them smaller than microscopic dust mites.
No, these microchips can't be used to track you; they can only communicate outside the body with an ultrasound machine.
Your next doctor's appointment could soon become much more informative thanks to new microchips the size of dust mites, only visible beneath a microscope.

Picture this: Your surgeon wants to continuously monitor your lungs prior to a procedure to ensure your respiratory system is strong enough to deal with anesthesia. So, a technician uses a hypodermic needle to inject a few small microchips into your body. Then, they use an ultrasound machine to communicate with the chips, which show your lungs are primed for the operation. Your subsequent surgery is a breeze.

You think science is badass. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.
This is a vision of the future with the world's smallest single-chip system, a complete electronic circuit that technicians could one day inject directly into the body to monitor and diagnose certain health conditions.

Scientists at Columbia University have designed and fabricated the chips to measure body temperature so far, but they hope that one day, the chips can monitor everything from blood pressure, to glucose, to respiration, according to their new research, which appears in the journal Science Advances.

"We are very eager to pursue devices like this to augment ultrasonography, to go beyond what is available through endogenous characteristics of tissue," lead researcher Ken Shepard, professor of electrical engineering and biomedical engineering at Columbia University, tells Pop Mech.

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"These devices can be designed to sense things and communicate this information back to the ultrasound image, which also provides biogeographical information on where this particular information was sensed," Shepard says.

But before you break out your book of conspiracy theories, we should be clear that researchers can't, under any circumstances, use these tiny devices to track you; they don't even use the type of radio frequency (RF) communications that would be required to do so.

How It Works
Each chip—or "mote," as the researchers call them—has three primary characteristics, Shepard says. Data transmission and power are both wireless; the interface that connects the human to the technology is integrated on the chip itself; and the device has a form factor that makes it amenable to the human body, meaning it's very small and unobtrusive.

To establish these qualities in a temperature-sensing chip, the team began with a typical "complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor" (CMOS) process, much like the technology you'd employ to create a chip for a computer, a car, or a smartphone. CMOS chips are made with a pair of semiconductors that are attached to a secondary voltage source so that they work at opposite times; when one transistor is switched on, the other is switched off.



But the Columbia researchers needed to add a microscale piezoelectric transducer to the chip so it could communicate with ultrasound technology. The transducer converts mechanical sound waves from the ultrasound machine into electrical signals and vice-versa. It's covered with a small layer of gold on both sides to enhance connectivity. The mote also features a layer of special conductive film and a thin sheet of copper.

"These are added after we get the chip back from the commercial foundry," Shepard explains. "In addition, we have to etch and thin the chips to these very small form factors and coat them with a kind of plastic for biocompatibility."

To power the chip, the scientists used a commercial ultrasound machine to apply ultrasound waves. Normally, you'd see RF antennas in a chip for data transmission purposes (like in a 5G base station), but the piezoelectric transducer is the "antenna" here. That's because ultrasound wavelengths are much smaller than radio wavelengths of the same frequency, allowing the device to be extremely small. All in all, the chips have a total volume of less than 1 cubic millimeter.

So far, the Columbia University team has successfully demonstrated the use of motes to monitor body temperature in lab rats. Specifically, the researchers injected the chips into the rodents' brains and hind legs to evaluate their temperature-sensing performance.


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https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a36503099/worlds-smallest-implantable-chip/

Don't be fooled, if this technology exist what about the tech that is probably top secret?
They are not going to tell us what they are capable of or what is in the developmental stages.
You know they have much more if they are releasing this.

don't like it. I don't trust them. They'll lie to us about the technology but you know it has more capabilities than this.

""Have a total volume of less than one cubic millimeter, making them smaller than microscopic dust mites.""

A cubic mill is about a third the size of a grain of rice, you can see it easily with the naked eye, There must be some farkin enormous dust mites crawling around on that fat ass of yours lol

that was a real jackass of a thing to say to her.

Calypso Jones wrote:that was a real jackass of a thing to say to her.

It's what you'd expect from someone still in puberty....

vege57 wrote:""Have a total volume of less than one cubic millimeter, making them smaller than microscopic dust mites.""

A cubic mill is about a third the size of a grain of rice, you can see it easily with the naked eye, There must be some farkin enormous dust mites crawling around on that fat ass of yours lol

LOL.

Calypso Jones wrote:that was a real jackass of a thing to say to her.

Shes can handle the jandle,,lol

vege57 wrote:

Calypso Jones wrote:that was a real jackass of a thing to say to her.

Shes can handle the jandle,,lol

another adolescent heard from...

They don't have to justify the technology with any need for it, just that it's cool and they can do it. "Lookee what we did!"

No beneficial purpose or need required for "cool". These chips have no useful purpose except to track people except in a very small number of cases, it seems to me. The capability is very invasive 24/7 and belongs to whomever has the ability to track and/or monitor the person.



Here a young tattooed girl receives RFID chip in her hand. "Didn't hurt", she declares. "I have a belief that most things in life are improvable, and it's our responsibility to act on that improvement."

That makes no sense whatsoever. So just because it can be done, you should do it?

Some communities I think require that shelter pets have these radio ID's installed before they can be adopted. Three of my pets were chipped.  It might be a good idea for pets, I don't know. They were never used, as far as I know.

I happen to know people who would "chip" their children without a thought or care. So consider all the people who would "chip" other people for the ability to spy on them because they get pleasure from it. Their number is probably legion.