NASA scientist creates sensor for phones to identify cancer, toxins in air

Jing Li, a scientist at NASA Ames has devised a cellphone sensor that can test the air for toxins. Originally, it is a small chip containing 32 nanosensor bars, which you can attach to your smartphone to check toxins in air anywhere or in your body itself. Breathing to your cellphone with the small chip accessory, you can simply see if there is any toxin in your body. Well, it can be used as a non-invasive diagnosis and measurement system as well.

Cancer-Sniffing Cellphone Sensor

NASA has devised this technology for space applications. Researcher Jing Li developed this to monitor fuel leaks around launch vehicles and, ultimately, for the security of NASA’s space missions. The Department of Homeland Security came up with necessary funds to bring this project to life.

The mobile accessory consumes only 5 milliwatts. The chip will not drain your handset’s battery anyway. In the meanwhile, you can entirely depend on the chip to monitor carbon monoxide and other toxic chemicals like methane, chlorine and ammonia in your home or anywhere else. The chip comes with an app as well, which sends the data automatically to the Department of Security if any kind of critical toxin leak is identified.

The most revolutionary use of the nanosensor chip allows users to detect diseases. See for example, there is a huge connection between lung cancer and nitrous oxide. So, users can identify the early signs of cancer by utilizing this technology. The cellphone sensor may further help in detecting other diseases, like checking sugar levels in diabetes patients and so on.

Via: Gizmodo