Enlarge image i The iTube platform, left, employs colorimetric assays and a smartphone- primarily based digital reader to detect possible food allergen. A display capture of the iTube App appears on the proper.
The iTube platform, left, utilizes colorimetric assays and a smartphone- primarily based digital reader to detect possible meals allergen. A display capture of the iTube App appears on the ideal.
Managing food allergies can be a discomfort, requiring tons of sleuthing of components in dining establishments and supermarkets. But individuals with potentially lethal allergies to nuts and other meals will not have substantially alternative.
Dozens of smartphone apps offer you to make that activity easier. Physicians say, though, the apps now on the marketplace just aren't trusted ample.
We here at The Salt received to thinking about meals allergy apps when we ran across Aydogan Ozcan's new smartphone- primarily based foods chemistry lab. The iTube employs a regular cellphone camera to analyze a food's chemical composition. A user need to have only pop a chunk of food into one particular of the two wee check tubes connected to the cell phone, wait twenty minutes, and presto! laboratory final results, in components per million.
Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, specializes in re-engineering cell phones into equipment. He invented, for example, an affordable microscope that could be used to check blood for malaria parasites or the HIV virus.
He envisions the iTube as a instrument for colleges, eating places and, of course, moms and dads of kids with foods allergy symptoms. Customers of the minilab could upload their results to a personal database or share the final results with people around the planet to produce a crowdsourced meals allergy database.
Ozcan recently tested the iTube prototype with retailer - bought cookies and identified that his gadget accurately identified the presence of peanuts. The final results are published online in the journal Lab on a Chip.
Charmed as we are by this invention, we realized that when speaking about life -threatening illnesses it would be good to talk to a physician. So we named up Scott Sicherer, a researcher at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He is not charmed at all.
"I surely have concerns and skepticism and warnings for my clients who use any of these items," he told The Salt. "As far as I know, they are not precise ample to depend on."
Foods allergy apps on the market fall into 3 classes : foods journals, to track meals eaten and symptoms databases of meals elements and bar code scanners that can be applied to figure out meals ingredients.
The meals journals look like they'd be harmless, due to the fact all the information comes from the man or woman using them. But Sicherer says they could lead folks to self-diagnose an allergy that is not there and put themselves on needlessly restrictive diet plans. " Talk to a medical doctor " about signs, he says. " Will not test to diagnose yourself. That is wherever men and women get themselves into problems."
A scan of offered iPhone and Android foods database apps reveals lukewarm evaluations, with men and women noting inconsistency in between the apps and actual product labels. Given how usually meals producers transform products and substances, it looks like maintaining an accurate, detailed database for an app would be hard at greatest. Sicherer says: "When you're talking about your wellness and security, you may well not want to depend on that."
How about the bar code readers? They've been really effective for organizations, such as Fat Watchers, that offer them to assistance folks identify the calorie, excess fat, and fiber content in packaged meals.
But Sicherer dumps cold water on the notion of relying on these kinds of apps for acquiring possible allergens. " There's a huge difference if you're determining if something's going to send you into [ existence -threatening] anaphylaxis, or if the calories are greater or decrease. The margin of error is diverse."
Regrettably, Sicherer says, the most dependable and easiest point to do to prevent foods allergens is however to " read through the label carefully, [and] ask queries in a restaurant."
Ozcan's lab on a cell phone seems like it could consider care of the inaccuracy problem. But the prototype calls for consumers to undertake a mini chemistry experiment. They would have to grind up the foods, combine it in a test tube with hot water and a solvent, and then mix it with a series of testing liquids. That process takes about twenty minutes.
Imagine getting a brownie in a coffee store and then going by means of that twenty -minute drill. All of a sudden asking the server "Does this have nuts in it?" appears like not such an ordeal.
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com iPhone, iPad and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc. Apple iPhone 5 - Learn about apps from the App Store. The highest quantity. Of the highest quality. The App Store has the worlds largest collection of mobile apps. But its not just the number thats impressive. Enterprise Mobile Today - www.enterprisemobiletoday.com Providing strategies, expert analysis and tips for deploying mobile technology in the enterprise. Electronics - How To Information eHow.com Electronics: Whether you're researching a video iPod or a plasma TV, a digital camera or a complete home audio system, eHow's How To experts are here to help. eHow's ... barfblog safe food from farm to fork Earlier this month, researchers led by Qing Wang from the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, quantified in the journal Food and Environmental ... Samsung Galaxy Pocket S5300 FULL ON REVIEW Newtechs4u.com This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under ... Cell Phones 4G Phones Android Smartphones T-Mobile Purchase cell phones, 4G phones, and adnroid smartphones from T-Mobile.T-Mobile USA is a national provider of wireless voice, messaging, and data services. Home - mypadmonkey News and reviews covering the eReader, iPad and Tablet world Technology and Science News - ABC News - ABCNews.com - Breaking ... Get the latest science news and technology news, read tech reviews and more at ABC News. Smartphone - 100 Most Popular iPhone Games Apps TatTap Tattoo App; Featured App: The Coolest Ink App on Planet Earth! We have interviewed some of the top tattoo artists and people who sport majestic tattoos, and ...
No comments:
Post a Comment