A team of international researchers recently unveiled a nano array that can identify the chemical signatures of 17 different diseases, possibly bringing us closer to the day when doctors might be able to use a medical tricorder a la Star Trek to instantly diagnose a patient's conditions.
Though it isn't exactly a new idea – Hippocrates wrote about the correlation between breath odors and disease back in 400 B.C. and traditional Chinese medicine has long seen halitosis as an indication of an unbalanced qi – using breath tests to diagnose and monitor bodily disorders and disease is a research field that has been gaining momentum in recent years. And for good reason too. It would be the ultimate diagnostic test – potentially inexpensive and painless (not to mention a godsend for anyone with a fear of needles), and it would be able to deliver results fairly quickly too.
That said, in order for this to happen, breathalyzers need to be able to identify more than one disease at any given time. The technologies developed to date have a limited scope and are designed to detect only one kind of disease, such as a particular type of cancer or diabetes. And while there have been attempts to identify a wider scope of ailments, there has been no real breakthrough at distinguishing different diseases in a breath sample – till now.
(Score: 2, Funny) by inertnet on Monday December 26 2016, @11:36AM
Breathtaking research.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday December 26 2016, @12:43PM
Smells like cancer.
If this works, CNN will no longer be able to air feel-good stories about dogs detecting cancer, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @01:42PM
Until cancer, could they just use it for throat infections?
>designed to detect only one kind of disease, such as... diabetes
Easy-peasy. Put a drop of blood on the hot plate, if it smells of caramel it's diabetes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @04:44PM
Until cancer, could they just use it for throat infections?
You know, you can just look in the throat and see? It's pretty simple actually to differentiate possibly bacterial infection, which is quite rare, to viral. You don't need anything more.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Monday December 26 2016, @02:54PM
Been in the news for more than 10 years [cbsnews.com].
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Monday December 26 2016, @03:35PM
This system doesn't poop on the floor.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @04:26PM
This system doesn't poop on the floor.
But the spec for that has been written and it's already on the roadmap for version 2.0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 26 2016, @03:38PM
The dogs require fairly extensive training, to learn to identify a single disease.
This thing can identify 17 different diseases, all at the same time. If it fails to alert on you, then you can be fairly sure that you don't have any of those 17 diseases. The algorithms can be installed into breathalyzers pretty quickly. There is no hint how much time it takes to build a breathalyzer, but it's surely a much shorter time than training one dog to sniff one disease.
Now that they've figured out how to do this much, an all-purpose breathalyzer mey be coming. Breathe in, and it tells you EVERYTHING that is wrong with your metabolism. We can expect to see them installed in shopping malls, like sphygmomanometers in the '80's. Insert credit card, debit $10, and get a printout that tells you that alcohol consumption is kicking your ass, along with a kidney infection, bronchitis, and an infected cut on your elbow.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 26 2016, @03:59PM
My first post probably sounds dismissive of dogs, and their ability to sniff out disease. I don't mean it to sound that way. Someone actually paid attention to a canine, and figured out that the dog was smarter than humans. The dogs are pretty awesome. They probably CAN sniff out a lot more diseases, without any training on our part. The training involved is that which enables the humans to understand what the dogs are telling us.
Still, this new technology beats dogs, for much the same reason that automation beats humans. The robots and sensors don't have bad days, they don't fall in love and get married, they don't demand days off, no sick days, etc ad nauseum.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @09:36PM
They probably CAN sniff out a lot more diseases, without any training on our part.
They require training. The raw talent is there, a dog might be able to smell millions of different things in the air but how would he know the significance of most of them? There's no instinct for "oh this sort of smell is what the humans want me to bark at". They wouldn't know that something means "disease X" or "bomb".
It's like a kid being able to see stuff very clearly but not be able to read books, follow a spoor, tell ripe fruit from unripe fruit etc. The kid needs to be taught and trained to maximise his potential even if his eyesight is far better than his teachers.
The robots and sensors don't have bad days
Yeah, dogs get bored, machines don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 26 2016, @10:28PM
I hope they can adapt this thing to snifff out what the fuck is wrong with my wife's stinky crotch?