chemistry
< Sciences
< bisuree
Proving that there is always ‘an app for that’, it will very soon be possible to use your smartphone as a portable analytical chemistry lab, testing urine samples for the presence of up to 10 chemical and physical biomarkers. Hypochondriacs the world over will, no doubt, be delighted that the software can diagnose up to 25 conditions for them to agonise over, from diabetes to urinary tract infections (UTIs). Resisting the temptation to call the software ‘iPee’, 29-year-old MIT graduate and entrepreneur Myshkim Ingawale announced the app – actually called ‘Uchek’ – at the Technology Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles earlier this week. Readers will be relieved to discover that a waterproof phone is not required to answer the call of nature. Instead one pees into a small cup, dips a diagnostic strip into one’s urine then waits for two minutes before photographing the strip with one’s phone.
