Biochips -- flexible, disposable plastic circuits that "compute" via chemical reaction -- have been nearing reality for over a decade, but
for obvious reasons we don't always pay attention. German research institute
Fraunhofer IZM has just convinced us it's high time we did. This week, the organization announced that it's on the verge of creating a lab-on-a-chip that can diagnose deep vein thrombosis from a single drop of blood, as well as a wristband that can measure body temperature, skin moisture and electromagnetic radiation using plastic chips and sensors only micrometers thick. Impressive, yes, but the real news is the production process -- these gadgets can be
printed in reels and sheets. The organization imagines the tools will be so cheap they'll be disposable; rather than wait for lab results, worried individuals will just take one out, test and toss to feel confident about their bloodwork, before hopefully going back to their normal lives.
posted April 20th 2010 2:32AM
Ok, this is getting WAY too crazy! Really getting out of hands. Good luck to us all.
"German researchers develop biotch sensor bracelet, disposable blood lab"
Thats what I initially read it as, made me laugh.
Besides for health alerts, sensors like this are good for child safety too .. if a child or person is abducted/kidnapped or lost .. when it detects the vital signs of stress it can relay that info via phone to parents or authorities. There may be false positives and those can be worked out over time .. but it will be overall worth it. The sensor would need to be someplace where the abductor cant easily take it off .. and if they do it should definitely directly notify 911 so the cops can get there to the vicinity ASAP.
@JS
Yes, and the alarm will go off wenever the child cuts it's finger on a piece of paper, plays hide and seek, looses a party of any game imaginable or gets bored...
And in the end all parents or abductors will wrap their childs in tinfoil to protect them from robo brain control rays and themselves from the abduction stress alarm.
@JS
so, every time one of my kids throws a tantrum , I get a phone call?
no thanks.
Another Skynet trick.
Pipboy alpha version
hope Mythbusters dont storm-in saying "This thing might put a mind control chip in your blood!!!". I actually woud prefer thisthing instead of scary looking doctors.
Great! Once the robots have a taste for blood there's only one obvious warpath they'll partake in: the war on humanity.
a watch should only be a watch, its called watch to watch time only.
Hmm. If this thing could do blood sugar without blood then we're talking.
This is exactly what I want to integrate into a watch for cross-country bike riders and the like.
@knAuz that is why it is disposable.
"diagnose deep vein thrombosis from a single drop of blood, as well as a wristband that can measure body temperature, skin moisture and electromagnetic radiation"
You know, I didn't dig too deep into the above links, and I know that this is marketing on their part, but I don't know who will bother with this, clinically speaking. You're going to draw other labs anyway, so adding a d-dimer is no big deal. Besides, you're probably not going to diagnose DVT/PE on blood alone, so I don't see how this changes anything (except general tech advances and future potential, perhaps).
Temp? Don't need a wristband for that. Skin moisture? ...? Electomagnetic radiation? Perhaps, but that's an awfully big category.