WASHINGTON -- Scientists have created a small robotic device that guides itself safely through a beating pig's heart, demonstrating what such tools might one day do in surgery.
And they borrowed some tricks from animals to do the job. To find its way to a specific point in the heart, the thin tube called a catheter gently tapped its path along heart walls and to a valve, much like how cockroaches skitter along walls and rats reach out with their whiskers
Researchers from Boston Children's Hospital tested their robot in pigs. Experienced doctors were a little faster threading catheters into place. But researchers say robotic devices might one day do routine steps in operations so doctors could focus on more complicated tasks.
The research was .
