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Implanted chip takes pets' temperatures

Leslie Katz Former Culture Editor
Leslie Katz led a team that explored the intersection of tech and culture, plus all manner of awe-inspiring science, from space to AI and archaeology. When she's not smithing words, she's probably playing online word games, tending to her garden or referring to herself in the third person.
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Leslie Katz

Think Fido might be running a fever? Now all you have to do to measure your dog's temperature is tune in to an implantable RFID microchip.

St. Paul, Minn.-based Digital Angel Corp. on Monday announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company a patent for a syringe-implantable microchip that uses radio frequency technology to determine the body temperature of its host animal. Potential applications for the chip include non-invasive monitoring of temperatures in cats, dogs, livestock and horses and early detection of infectious diseases such as bird flu in poultry.

The patented technology covers a passive transponder, a sensor and integrated circuit that together make it possible for someone with a scanner to determine the body temperature of an animal implanted with the Bio-Thermo.

Bio-Thermo microchips are currently being sold in the United Kingdom, Japan and the Philippines, Digital Angel says, with patents covering the Bio-Thermo RFID technology currently pending in several other countries. The company has begun marketing the chips in the U.S. equine market, it says, and is preparing to sell the microchips for the companion animal market, as well.