Give me that Tricorder!

March 1, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Purdue University researchers have created a handheld sensing system its creators liken to Star Trek’s “tricorder” used to analyze the chemical components of alien worlds.
The new portable system is an ultrafast chemical-analysis tool that has numerous promising uses for detecting everything from cancer in the liver to explosives residues on luggage and “biomarkers” in urine that provide an early warning for diseases.
“We like to compare it to the tricorder because it is truly a handheld instrument that yields information about the precise chemical composition of samples in a matter of minutes without harming the samples”, one of the researchers said.

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