NEW YORK (AP) - As consumers we want our electronic gadgets to
be durable. But as patients, we might want them to dissolve -
inside our bodies. Scientists reported Thursday that they
succeeded in creating tiny medical devices sealed in silk
cocoons that did the work they were designed for, then dissolved
in the bodies of lab mice. It's an early step in a technology
that may hold promise, not only for medicine, but also for
disposal of electronic waste. The new work is "a remarkable
achievement" in combining materials to produce a working device,
said Christopher Bettinger of Carnegie Mellon University. He
works on biodegradable electronics but was not involved in the
study. Doctors already use implants that dispense drugs or
provide electrical stimulation, but they don't dissolve. The new
work is aimed at making devices that do their jobs as long as
needed and then just dissolved, without need for surgical
removal or risk of long-term side effects. In the experiment,
the devices - which look like tiny compute