I, for one, welcome our new miniaturized, self-propelling, self-navigating, intestine-inflating robot overlords:
Once both balloons are inflated, CO2 is used to insufflate the space between them. Because the rectal balloon is anchored against the anus and cannot be moved, the scanner balloon is propelled forward along the colon by the air pressure building up between the two balloons. [...]
Once the Aer-O-Scope reaches the cecum, the CO2 behind the scanner balloon is vented out through the rectum, and CO2 is used to insufflate the space between the scanner balloon and the bottom of the cecum. The workstation now establishes higher pressure levels in front of the scanner balloon, thus propelling the balloon and capsule back towards the rectum. This "reverse motion" may be supplemented by the operator gently pulling on the supply cable.
(Or, in layman's terms, "blow it out your ass.")
Surely just as soon as the microcontroller software will be crunched down to a size manageable by a PDA, we will be able to roam the landscape of malls and parkinglots, while simultaneously testing our rectal integrity and listening to the latest music downloads from the web, the volume control (naturally) operated by "gently pulling on the supply cable".Yeah, technology!
CO2? Yeesh -- that sounds uncomfortable. Why not nitrogen, or something else that would't make you feel like someone gave you a coca-cola enema?
I dunno. Gas is gas. Unless it's hideously toxic, what you're bloated with doesn't really make it any more or less uncomfortable.
Carbon dioxide + water = carbonic acid. Not sure what the effect would be in practice, though. The colon apparently varies in acidity from 5.5 (top end) to 7 (anus end), so to some extent it's used to this kind of thing.
Conceivably, soda-induced gas would also have significant CO2 content, and they don't seem to do anything much.
I was thinking that methane would have been the obvious insufflating element here.
Something fun and inert...Helium?
Only dogs would be able to hear you fart!
... they just revealed the controller for the Aer-O-Scope:
It shall be marketed under the name "The ProbeStation". So mote it be!
That thing have a built-in mp3 player? Nothing like a little ass-music during surgery. I hear the anus is a natural woofer.
Depends what you eat, really.
Introducing the new i-Poop
Revolutionizing the enema fetish industry. Now you get a home video!
Oh, that is cool.
Vented through the rectum, eh?
At work, when they did the robot pig surgeries, they would have to insufflate the pig with C02 and she would blow up like a beach ball. The problem was, overinsufflation would cause too much pressure on the lungs and if you're not careful the pig's heart will start racing and then she'll have a heart attack.
But, the surgeons still needed enough inflation to have room to work, so it was a delicate balance.
When the pig was overinflated and if I noticed the heart starting to race, it was my job to stick a big 14-gauge needle into the belly and "pop" the pig.
It's not as fun as it sounds, but when I did it I always imagined it making a sputtering sound like a balloon with the air let out.
And you get a free 128-Meg disk keychain if you visit their presentation. I wonder if that fits in your ass, too?
I've *had* a colonoscopy, and I'm not sure what the hell this thing is.
Then again, if it means that only part of the colon is inflated instead of all of it, it might not be so bad.