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Nanothermometer Withstands Heat
StyleChief writes "Technology Review reports that researchers from the Japanese National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have fashioned nano thermometers from a magnesium oxide nanotube filled with liquid gallium. The tiny thermometers are between 20 and 60 nanometers thick, or about one hundredth the diameter of a red blood cell."
Of course not. It would be measuring temperature!
This is quite interesting. It can detect a range of tempratures up to 1000 degrees centigrade, but the article doesn't mention how low it goes or how low it can go without suffering permanant structural damage, and also doesn't mention o fit can tolerate going from hot to cold. In actuality, how robust is this thing?
But that's beside my point. I'm sure many of you will already have thought about this, but it is relevant, nonetheless. Consider medical thermometers today. They are placed in all sorts of places in order to get a reading of external temperature, but for early detection of viruses (characterised by an increase in body temperature as the body attempts to heat the virus to the point of breaking down) you need a good accurate reading of temperature and it would be more useful to be able to find internal temperature than internal temperature. The instrument would need to be sensitive aswell and a healthy range of precise temperatures needed for that specific person so a change can be detected.
With today's advancement in miniaturised technology, it would be possible to engineer these tiny thermometers, stated as being a hundredth of the size of a red blood cell, with a signal transmitter attached. Something harmless like a radio wave (although that would degrade over distance) every minute could be attached to the thermometer in order to make a tiny internal thermometer which travels in th blood stream and doesn't affect the body adversely from within, providing it is the right size and shape. In this way, everyone's temperatures could be monitored from central station in medical centres. Sound expenive, but for those hypocondriacs with money, it would both put their mind at rest and give them a better medical coverage for early dtection of things such as viral infection.
In actuality, such a device would need to obtain its energy from the blood in some way. Alcohol might not be socially acceptable (I know I don't drink) and perhaps combustion of oxygen and glucose in the blood would increase the temperature next to the thermometer, assuming this time combustion unit, transmitter and thermometer are part of the same unit. Size, as I see it, wouldn't be a problem though. The thermometer is less than a hundredth od the size of a red blood cell and the entire unit could be the same size as a red blood cell with absolutely no problem for the blood, except in the event of a blood clot.
In thinking, this could lead the way to pioneering technology in the field of medical nonotechnology. Perhaps blood clots in the future will be dealt with by tiny devices in the bloodstream. In any case, monitoring of human being's health at all times is a must have for the faroff contnuation of a good health system of the future.