News You Can't Use: Scientists Developing Disease-Sniffing Smartphone

Is there any problem that can't be solved by Smartphones? The answer is no, assuming you don't consider societal alienation, lack of national vision, currency backed by nothing, a foreign policy that is both overly aggressive and cowardly at the same time, atomization, spiritual cancer, narcissism and ignorance, and the fact that movie tickets keep getting more expensive for some reason to be problems. Based on our national graveyard whistling we clearly don't, so let's all sing Hosannas to this hand-held miracle.

A device that pairs with your smartphone and screens your breath for early detection of potentially life-threatening diseases is in the works at a research consortium at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

At alliteration and redundancy nightmare school we're working hard to create a phone that you can cough on and it will inform you that you've got an incurable and highly communicative cold virus.

Unsurprisingly called the SNIFFPHONE, it's being funded by a grant from the European Commission.

I ain't even surprised, bro.

"It will be made tinier and cheaper than disease detection solutions currently, consume little power, and most importantly, it will enable immediate and early diagnosis that is both accurate and non-invasive," says Professor Hossam Haick, head of the consortium.

It's a lot cheaper and more practical than installing an M.R.I. machine in your house.

A combination of micro and nano-sensors will analyze the exhaled breath and send the information through the smartphone to be processed for interpretation -- perhaps in a corresponding app -- which establishes the diagnosis.

Blow on it. Some sort of magic will occur, perhaps. Get your diagnosis and bask in the relief or terror that comes with it.

Breath analysis to detect disease is a developing science.

So give the guy a break, all right? *tries to start slow clap, fails*

This past May, Dr. Raed Dweik of the Cleveland Clinic in the US published a paper on an experiment in which his team was able to recognize the unique "breathprint" of those with heart failure.

There was no breath at all, what with that whole "failure" thing.

Just checking for diseases, it's perfectly normal.

In 2013, Dr. Ruchi Mathur developed a breath test that reveals an individual's susceptibility to weight gain.

If your breath constantly smells of Big Macs, swine products and diet cola you may have that "susceptibility."

Full Story.

Komment Korner  

It'll be like Star Trek's tricorder as you run your smartphone over an individual and based on the combination of chemicals that is detected, the smartphone can tell what type of disease the person is suffering from or if the they've got a chemical weapon strapped to their body. 


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.