I have to have a colonoscopy soon and am dreading it. I'd much rather have teeny robots running around inside of me that a long tube.

This may threaten the job security of Richard Gere's gerbil.

they can call it the "hagfish"

Time for another remake of I Am Legend.

I'm with Johnny. "Sticky films" sound a lot better than "man jamming fifty feet of tube up my ass".

@ #1

They aren't a big deal. I actually had my first colonoscopy this morning. I strongly recommend "twighlight anesthesia" - you don't feel or remember a thing (Kinda like an IV "roofie").

But please don't put it off. In my line of work, I've talked to quite a few YOUNG people who ended up with colostomy bags, because they didn't get things checked out soon enough.

Good luck!

crawl inside the colon and grip its sides with the aid of sticky films

Oh sure - that sounds comfortable. (Doc, can I have another Vicodin, please? kthx!)

I would be worried that the robot would get lost and not find it's way out.

It shouldn't have any trouble finding its way out. It might not come out the right end, but there are only two directions.

@8:

One would think the adhesive film would break down over time, and the lil' fella would eventually pass out through the normal means of egress from the colon.

I can't wait for the day when the OED adds the term "roboshit" to the English language

Gotta agree with #6.

The worst part of my colonoscopy was the nasty salty laxative you have to take as prep, and the entire night of painfull cramps and shooting liquid out my ass that it caused. I don't even remember anything from the proceedure itsself, just a big blank from them injecting something into the IV and me getting woken up in the recovery room an hour later.

Roboshit, huh? Is anyone else thinking Terminator 5?

Oh my god! They've invented gay robots! Someone call Focus on the family!

Nice to see our government finally putting its top-secret space alien technology to work.

This is not news. NASA sent a probe to Uranus over 20 years ago.

GO, GO, ASSBOTS!!

Will they be equipped with anti-pin worm phasers?

I think Johnny wins. I just hope they don't run on a Microsoft OS ...

Hey 1 and 6, Happy Post-Colonoscopy to you!
I'm involved with patient care around these procedures, and you're right on about the nasty, colon-blowing prep. That really is the worst part - during the procedure, the patient usually gets via IV a narcotic, along with a drug in the same family as valium. That cocktail keeps you loopy and comfortable throughout the procedure.
If there was any more immediate need of improvement (rather than scopes vs robots), I'd say it would be great to have a better prep medication than the big jug of stuff you have to drink beforehand. IMO that's the hardest part of having one of these done.

Oops, I meant 6 & 11. But 1, really, just get through the prep and you should be OK.

If you're going to give away the whole plot of the new Pixar flick, at least say add a spoiler alert at the top.

@15 gave me my first hearty laugh of the day, for the oldest pun in the book, used in precisely the perfect context.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, everybody. Of course, I'm not going to put it off. I'm sure colon cancer would be a much bigger ordeal.