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Ntech intros ear-rattling NVE 100B Bluetooth earbuds
After a long, hard day spent fixing that ever-present paper jam in the office printer, it's nice to kick back in iJoy's ZipConnect while letting the iGoGo personal massager sooth away your aches and pains to the tune of your favorite Breakfast Club jam. But Ntech wants to add one more aspect to your already jubilating experience by tossing an extra vibe directly on your ear. The NVE 100B is an "earring-style" Bluetooth earphone designed to simply clip onto your ear, with the front half pumping out music while the backside thumps to the beat. Strangely enough, the company actually expects the non-intrusive earbud to "prevent possible auditory disease," but we're assuming you take a major hit in sound quality to accomplish such a precaution. Nevertheless, these oddly sensational (albeit probably dysfunctional) earclips should be available on the Korean market just before the year's end for a currently undisclosed price.
LouseBuster kills lice, is ineffective against Slimer, Gozer
We're sure Dan Aykroyd and the gang never envisioned their symbolic ghost-busting machine being converted into a lice-evicting device, but researchers at the University of Utah are doing just that. The "chemical-free, hairdryer-like device" -- dubbed the LouseBuster -- eradicates head lice infestations on children by exterminating the eggs (or "nits"), and killing enough lice to prevent them from reproducing. While the description may make some folks queasy, Dale Clayton not only supports the head vacuum, but claims that it cured his teenagers from their own battle with lice. The rake-like comb channels air from the machine into the hair, which after several half-hour treatments makes the environment too arid for lice to survive; however, the team was quick to warn parents that hairdryers weren't an acceptable substitute for the miracle-working powers put forth by the LouseBuster. Nevertheless, Clayton hopes his spinoff company, Larada Sciences, will have the presumably Bill Murray-approved apparatus on shelves soon.[Via MedGadget]
UC Berkeley's disease-detecting E-Nose
The last time we checked in on electronic nose technology, hospitals were using the still-boutique devices for very specialized institutional work such as monitoring nasty bacteria outbreaks. Recent breakthroughs by a company called Nanomix, however, could make E-Noses a standard tool in every patient examination room, with UC Berkeley researchers using the company's tech to design cheap devices that can "sniff out" disease-laden molecules in samples a person's breath. Nanomix's "Sensation" detection platform uses multiple, configurable carbon nanotube-based sensors to instantly provide a reading from a puff or air, although the exact diseases that the battery-powered devices will be programmed to detect have not been announced. We do know that the first application of this tech will probably be for carbon dioxide detection, allowing emergency personnel to immediately determine the efficacy of breathing tubes used to stabilize patients on board an ambulance.
