back to article Chilli crab scoffing boffins build anti-cancer claw robot

The fight against cancer reached a weird new level after Singapore’s centuries-old chilli crab dish inspired boffins to build a tumour-removing robot. Widespread reports explain that the gear, which is mounted on an endoscope, has a small pair of pincers to grab the affected area, an even smaller hook to slice off the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Jon Green
    Facepalm

    Oh, the irony!

    "Quite what the hawkers of Singapore’s fabled food markets think about one of their most famous creations being associated with a life-threatening illness remains to be seen"

    Well, the better-informed ones, or at least the ones familiar with astrology, would know that the Latin word "cancer" means "crab", so it always was associated thus!

    The irony, of course, is a crab-inspired technology being used to cure that illness.

  2. Simon Neill

    You're going to feel

    A slight pinch.

  3. Andy 70
    Coat

    foiled!

    drat. and there was me hoping that there was going to be a scientific bases for consuming vast amounts of chilli crab... ah well...

    1. SiempreTuna
      Happy

      Scientific excuse for eating lots of chilli crab?

      .. it tastes SO good! Almost as good as pepper crab or butter crab.

      What other reason d'you need ..?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Goes well with beer. That's scientific enough for me.

  4. Graham Bartlett

    @Jon Green

    Dead right. The German language has actually kept this link until today - so "Krebs" means cancer, the Cancer star sign, or a crab.

    (Off-topic: The Virgo star-sign is "Jungfrau" in German, which means "virgin". As a lad of 16 or so, I thought things were moving a bit fast when my German girlfriend said "Ich bin Jungfrau". But sadly she was only talking about her star-sign and wasn't initiating hanky-panky...)

    1. perlcat
      Pint

      @Graham

      No tit for tat for you, then.

  5. Jonathan Richards 1
    Go

    From TFA: "With the help of a tiny camera attached to the endoscope, the surgeon sees what's inside the gut and controls the robotic arms remotely while sitting in front of a monitor screen."

    I think that makes this a sort of crab-waldo rather than a proper full-on robot. A nano-bot-crab sitting in one's stomach, stripping out cancerous cells and drawing its nourishment from chilli was what I was kind of expecting. Too much, I know.

  6. Local Group
    Happy

    Let me know

    when they put on an endoscope a small pair of pincers, a small camera and light, an even smaller hook and a tiny graduate oncologist from Johns Hopkins Medical School specializing in tumor quarrying.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I say!

    "The robotic gadget could be ready for commercial use in another three." You mean we can use them on _Bankers_?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like