Breath scanner can detect diseases

We used to think the only useful information you could get from a person's breath had to do with his hygiene and eating habits. Of course, the breathalyzer proved us wrong on that, and now a company called Menssana Research is about to prove that you can learn a lot more than whether someone had onion soup at lunch from the fumes emanating from his mouth. The company's Breathscanner can reportedly check for serious illnesses, including some forms of cancer, pulmonary TB and heart-transplant rejection, all by analyzing organic compounds that surface in a patient's breath. The company's desktop machine — which has been used in research for over five years, but isn't yet available commercially — can deliver results in minutes. And, from the looks of it, the lab tech sits far enough away that there's no risk that any extraneous data (like that onion soup) can mar the test session.