Korean scientists reckon that the capacitive touchscreens on our phones and tablets could help diagnose diseases from what’s floating around for your mouth. It really works during the screen’s ability to detect minute capacitive differences in disease-carrying liquids put on its surface. Experiments by Hyun Gyu Park and Byoung Yeon Won on the Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology in Daejeon managed to detect chlamydia microbes in three different concentrations. Once more , the iPhone acted as medical chief, although the setup isn’t yet capable of distinguish between different bugs. There also are teething troubles with the touchscreen, as capacitive read-outs could be laid low with moisture and sweat which are at the screen alongside your ‘sample.’ One approach to this will likely be to create a disposable film that attaches to the iPhone surface. There is a second cause of this, as Park diplomatically puts it: “Nobody wants direct application of bio-samples onto their phone.” Let’s hope Siri doesn’t take it personally.
[ Sneezing photo via Shutterstock]
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