In the 1980s, NASA developed a wireless thermometer-in-a-pill to keep tabs on the body temperature of astronauts. Now, some American football players are swallowing the pills to protect themselves from potentially-deadly heatstroke. The thermometer pill is part of HQ Inc.'s "Coretemp" line of "miniaturized data recorder(s)." From IEEE Spectrum:
Once swallowed, the multivitamin-size pill acts as an internal thermometer, providing continuous readings of a player's body temperature, which can be picked up by a sensor placed against the small of the player's back. Players take the pills a couple of hours before the start of practice, allowing the capsules time to reach an athlete's small intestine, where core body temperature readings accurate to within 0.1 °C can be taken.
A year after the (Minnesota Vikings player Korey Stringer died of heatstroke, in 2003), Philadelphia Eagles player Tra Thomas was saved from a similar fate during summer training camp when a radio pill reported that he had a core body temperature of 40.9 °C and trainers pulled him off the field. "He hadn't shown any signs of heat stress," said Derek Boyko, the Eagles' director of football media services. "Who knows if, without the device, the training staff would have known he was in danger before it was too late."
