Surgical robot

In what's been called "a medical breakthrough on the verge of happening," scientists have built a soft robot with the capacity to carry different types of drugs through the body – in a device the size of a grain of rice, steered by magnetic fields.

Nightmare fuel? Maybe – but in a historic moment for the dental profession, an AI-controlled autonomous robot has performed an entire procedure on a human patient for the first time, about eight times faster than a human dentist could do it.

Among the cargo that just blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bound for the ISS were two firsts: the world’s first metal 3D printer designed especially for use in orbit and the first miniaturized surgical robot to be sent to the station.

When someone has experienced a stroke, they may require a surgical procedure known as an endovascular intervention. A new MIT-designed robotic system could ensure that they receive the treatment quickly, even if the physician is nowhere nearby.

A delicate procedure called supermicrosurgery requires a high-level of expertise by surgeons, but they may soon have a new robotic tool at their disposal called Musa, which has performed its first round of procedures with great success.

Be it fear of striking nerves, major veins or arteries, doctors performing cranial surgery must take great care over many hours. But a new drilling robot built at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) could help lighten the load.