Interesting, but this is not really newsworthy. Surgeons have been using robots to perform a variety minimally invasive surgical procedures for years. Intuitive Surgical (<a href="http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/index.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/index.aspx</a>), maker of the da Vinci surgical robot, is the only serious player in the market, having bought out (and mothballing) their competitor Computer Motion. (A German alternative was shutdown by a patient lawsuit.) The major impediment to widespread adoption is cost: $2-3M for the robot and instruments are $3k each (a chip embedded in each limits reuse to 10 procedures).<p>The leading edge in this field is the development of flexible integrated manipulators (camera and multiple instrument arms packaged as a single device 12-15 mm in diameter) that can enter through a single port (hole), as opposed the 3 to 4 ports used in current practice (1 for the camera and 2 to 3 for instruments: grapsers, scissors, staplers, etc.). Ultimately, surgeons hope to be able to perform many surgeries through natural orifices (mouth, anus, vagina), eliminating visible scars.