单选题 . 
    Tiny crew members inside a microscopic submarine are injected into your bloodstream for an incredible mission that will take them deep inside your body to perform delicate surgery!
    It sounds like the science fiction plot for the 1966 movie "Fantastic Voyage", but this amazing scenario is close to becoming science fact—Japanese researchers are designing "microrobots" that will battle illnesses from inside human organs.
    "The microrobots are almost like shrunken men, zipping around through the veins to destroy cancer or repair damaged tissue," explained Kenzo lnagaki, a deputy director of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry—which is putting up a staggering $170 million for the project.
    The ground-breaking undertaking will begin in April. It will give doctors the ability to fight diseases in areas of the human body that were previously unreachable except by surgery, says Hiroyuki Fujita, a spokesman for the fantastic project that will involve six universities and giant companies like Toyota, Hitachi, Nikon and Toshiba.
    Researchers estimate it will take 10 years to carry out the plan, but they say that when it's completed it will dramatically change medicine as we know it! One robot they are planning is a "small pill"—a submarine-shaped capsule you swallow that can be guided to a diseased area inside your body.
    "It will be about two-fifths of an inch in diameter, and enclose a tiny robot," said Fujita.
    "In fact, the submarine' would be an incredibly tiny lab able to analyze conditions within the body."
    Once it enters the stomach, the robot could be steered either by an external remote control or by a built-in guidance system.
    When it reached a diseased area, the robot would be able to diagnose a condition close up and treat it with just the right amount of medication.
    "Once it has served its purpose, the pill will harmlessly exit the body through the waste system," he said.
    A second robotic device is a "micro-intelligent catheter" about one-fifth of an inch in diameter.
    The catheter, a tube withy a camera and a laser on the end, could be threaded into the gallbladder and pancreas.
    "Its tiny size will eliminate much of the pain and discomfort experienced by today's patients when much larger catheters are used," he said. "The probe will send doctors an accurate picture of what is happening inside without surgery."
    And its laser tip will enable physicians to operate internally. "Doctors will be able to use it to cut away cancerous growth, destroy blood clots or to repair breaks in the tissue," said Fujita.
    Ironically, these tread-setting medical developments planned by the Japanese come from research started years age in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US—but these efforts faltered because of a lack of funding.6.  "Tiny crew members" in the first paragraph refers to ______.