Medical microchip developed by Columbia University has nothing to do with vaccines

For a year the internet has been consumed with baseless conspiracy theories that the COVID-19 vaccine would be used to secretly microchip the American people.

Now there's a twist. Columbia University announced May 12 that researchers had developed a tiny microchip capable of measuring vital signs — and small enough to be injected.

The online reaction was predictable.

“Magnified many times. Tip of a hypodermic needle. Look what fits just inside…” a Facebook user captioned an image of the chip alongside a needle in a May 18 post. 

The post does not explicitly mention vaccines, but text inside the image...