This soap stinks
A microchip with drug-administering capabilities could soon make the common household television (TV) a delight for the olfactory senses. The chip can store a large number of drugs and releases them by remote control. It was initially designed to be implanted in the human body, where it would administer drugs to difficult-to-reach areas, but its developers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, say it could also be used to store smelly substances related to TV footage. Described in a recent issue of the science journal Nature, the chip has as many as 34 reservoirs, each containing some 25 nanolitres of a liquid, solid or gel. A little gold membrane breaks down when a current is applied, releasing the contents.