Three Ground-Breaking Miniature Biosensors

kkleiner writes "Over the past few years, several research teams have developed increasingly smaller and cheaper biosensors with improved detection capabilities and faster turnaround times. Whether you are a doctor diagnosing patients in the rural areas of Africa or a Homeland Security agent working to thwart an act of bioterrorism, one of these little devices should be your sidekick."

Cue obligatory comment...

[cappp]

Perfect combination for every guy out there - gadgets and a legitimate reason to argue that smaller is better.

Ground breaking?

[djupedal]

Ya' mean like 'multispectral imaging '...? Georgia Tech Creates Palm "Tricorder" Scanner Technology [dailytech.com] - 2008

One of these doesn't belong

[Null Nihils]

I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but it needs to be said:

a doctor diagnosing patients in the rural areas of Africa or a Homeland Security agent working to thwart an act of bioterrorism

One of these doesn't belong. I'll give you a hint: There are billions of one (that we don't hear enough about from anyone), and like three of the other (that we hear way too much about from certain mainstream media sources).

Re:

[LifesABeach]

If I could, I'd mod you up. Personally, I was considering applications applied to customers, like me. It would be nice to have feed back on how my body is doing, and other applications that would allow me to live a healthier life. I guess 7 billion customers are not as exciting as a doctor or bio freak.

Re:One of these doesn't belong

[Anachragnome]

"...or a Homeland Security agent working to thwart an act of bioterrorism"

Thwart an act of bio-terrorism?

How do ANY of these devices detect biological contaminants before they are released? Wouldn't that be "verifying an act of bio-terrorism"?

Silly marketing pinheads.

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

I'll go for "give professionals all around the world a cheap way to analyze chemical and biological substances"

Re:

[L4t3r4lu5]

On a serious note, it would prove a useful way to check if a needle is safe for use by drug addicts. Would cut blood-borne infections in the western world by a lot.

Re:

[the_other_chewey]

a doctor diagnosing patients in the rural areas of Africa or a Homeland Security agent working to thwart an act of bioterrorism

One of these doesn't belong. I'll give you a hint: There are billions of one (that we don't hear enough about from anyone),[...]

Your point is an entirely valid one, and I agree.

A nitpick though: There are no billions of people in the rural areas of Africa. Not even a single billion.
The whole of Africa has a population of only a wee bit over a billion, and over 100 million of those live
in the 50 largest cities [wikipedia.org] alone.
Including everything down to the level of decently-sized towns, this number more than doubles.

Africa as a whole (yes, that's a rather invalid viewpoint, but you started it ;-) is way more urbanized
than you seem to

Unrelated

[TaggartAleslayer]

I read this as Three Ground-Breaking Minotaur Binosauruses. I didn't know what it meant, but I smiled and clicked anyway. I dunno. I expected horns and scales or something.

Then I wondered if there were a dinosaur named Binosaurus, so I googled "Binosauruses" and there was a single return. So I clicked it. After the purple burned my retina, I closed it and RTFA, "Fast, small and cheap. No, I’m not describing the latest compact sports cars..."

It started with a car analogy. I just gave up at that point.

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[L4t3r4lu5]

By any chance did you experiment with mind-altering substances in the 60's?

Re:

[JustOK]

no, there were at least a hundred he experimented with.

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[Muad'Dave]

By any chance did you experiment with mind-altering substances in the last 60 minutes?

FTFY

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[PPalmgren]

It looks to me like he's been watching too many Bing commercials. DVR, man!

Are these the new capabilities for cell phones?

[Centurix]

Biometric monitoring?

Along with 5MP cameras, compass, GPS and inertia sensors could we start seeing cell phones with heart rate monitors, blood O2 sensors and blood-sugar detectors?

gkrellm

[bl8n8r]

that would be a cool gkrellm plugin

Diabetes

[plastbox]

I dream of the day when someone makes (and releases) an implantable blood glucose sensor. In October 2006, a company called Digital Angel was awarded a patent for an implantable, blood glucose measuring RFID-tag. From what I recall they even had a working device. The only downside was that due to scar tissue and encapsulation the chip needed to be removed every 6 months and a new one implanted, something any MD with a scalpel could do.

"Drive-thru"-surgery every 6 months to have constant blood glucose measurements? Yes please! Anyone know where this tech went? As a Type 1 Diabetic, it'd probably extend my lifespan by 10 years. Oh, and I could buy an RFID-reader and make my own data logger with graphs and biofeedback and everything!

Re:

[TheLink]

Not sure why they haven't got more success with stuff like this yet: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/03/us/plastic-pancreas-in-diabetic-dogs-brings-human-tests-closer.html [nytimes.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_pancreas#Approaches_to_an_Artificial_Pancreas [wikipedia.org]