Google’s new pill will search your body for cancer

In case you weren’t sure how serious Google were about world domination search, now they want to take their algorithms inside your body, too. Don’t worry, though: they come in peace. In fact, they only want to help you feel better and continue to use Google products live longer.

Today, Google’s experimental division Google X has announced that it’s working on a pill/wearable combo that will be able to track signs of cancer or heart attacks or even nutritional deficiencies in the blood. Plus, magnets! Their head of life sciences, Andrew Conrad, said that users would take a pill that includes nanoparticles, like proteins that can detect particular illnesses.

This isn’t the first time nanoparticles have had a medical application – if you read the site regularly, you’ll know they’re medicine’s latest obsession, because they’re efficient: just one billionth of a metre wide, but with a comparatively large surface area. They can also slip into the bloodstream without triggering an immune system response, meaning they have huge potential for the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.

Usually, though, they’d be broken down by the body. But by including minuscule magnets in the pill, Google’s wearable device will be able to attract all the particles back and interpret their data. In case you’re worried, the company says none of that sensitive medical info will ever make its way online: instead it will licence use of the technology to health companies who’ll keep it safe.

For now, Google’s put 100 of its best scientists on the project, which it hopes to complete by 2019. That means that in five years’ time, you’ll be able to have a minimally invasive medical test in the morning and watch the second part of Avengers: Infinity War in the afternoon. What a world.

Image via Carlos Luna’s Flickr.

[Via The Mary Sue.]

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