Live from Norwich: The broadcast with a difference

A Norwich scientist has swallowed a tiny camera to make a film about the journey of food.

Professor Simon Carding, head of gut health and food safety at the Institute of Food Research swallowed the "pillcam" yesterday morning before tucking into an unusual breakfast of brightly coloured peppers.

The tiny camera, which costs £500, is a wireless capsule endoscope. It has taken 60,000 images of Professor Carding's small bowel and the results are astonishingly clear - although there isn't a pepper to be seen!

Despite having a surface area equivalent to two tennis courts, the small bowel, cannot be explored by a normal endoscope.

Professor Carding's film will be shown at the IFR's open day on Saturday September 29th. It's to give members of the public the chance to see what goes on inside the leading research centre.

Children will also be able to walk through a giant inflatable colon!

The camera, meanwhile, is disposal and so will not be re-used.