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Purdue Unveils a Tricorder
aeoneal writes "According to Science Daily, mass spectrometry is no longer limited to what can be taken to the lab. Purdue researchers have created a device they liken to a tricorder, a handy 20-lb. device that combines mass spectrometry with DESI (desorption electrospray ionization), allowing chemical composition to be determined outside of a vacuum chamber. Purdue suggests this could be useful for everything from detecting explosive substances or cancer to predicting disease. Researcher R. Graham Cooks says, 'We like to compare it to the tricorder because it is truly a hand-held instrument that yields information about the precise chemical composition of samples in a matter of minutes without harming the samples.'"
a handy 20-lb. device
"He's dead Jim."
"Well, I dropped the tricorder on his head."
In 1992 Harry Harrison (of SF fame) and Marvin Minsky (of AI fame) collaborated on The turing option, trying to merge Minsky's ideas about how an artificial mind could work with a SF story. Wasn't exactly a masterpiece, but there was an astonishing twist: In the book a brilliant scientist creates the first true AI and embeds it into a sort of fractal robot, whose arms are split into more arms like branches on a tree, ending with thousands of autonomous arms with their own vision each. And the first place this system is used (after being stolen): in agriculture, picking up bugs.
So I will predict the first mass use of Purdue's Tricorder: Japanese toilets!!!. It can already recognize "biomarkers" in urine, so someone will build a cheap version of it into a toilet and every time you take a dump it will tell you what you should not have been eating, how sick you will be tomorrow and that if you continue that way your insurance won't cover your therapy. It will save the health systems billions.
.Oh, and I'm serious about the toilet part.
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The research team has used the device to ... identify cocaine on $50 bills in less than 1 second.
REAL playas use Benjamins to snort blow!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
a handy 20-lb. device
Must be the ST:TOS version. At 20 lb, I would imagine that a shoulder strap is mandatory wear. Thanks, but I'll wait until the ST:TNG version hits.
Remember what calculators and computers looked like 20 years ago? In a couple of decades we'll be looking at these pictures and laughing ourselves silly at the description 'portable'.
Evil will always win, because Good is DUMB
Not to say it wasn't convent to have a computer with a handle.
That being said, I wonder how hard it would be to miniaturize this kind of scanning technology. There is a real need for smaller computers, but is there a real need for mass-produced mass spectrometers?
the boston police should be happy about this
and it detects
Interestingly, the "toilet tricorder" was shown in the 2005 movie "The Island" starring Ewan McGregor. The toilet detected too much salt/nitrates in the urine and restricted him from eating bacon.
After carrying one of those around all day with a shoulder strap you'd welcome a Vulcan nerve pinch to ease the pain.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
This does indeed have enormous potential. But - how many million does it cost?
The government can't save you.
Spock: It looks like a toaster Jim.
Jim: Spock...what's a toaster?
Spock: It was a early 21st century tool for draining primitive power sources.
Jim: Why would they need such a tool?
Spock: The existence of such a tool defies logic Jim.
Dr. McCoy: YOU VILE EARTH BASHING VULCAN. Everything that was made by pre-space fairing human defies logic.
Dr. McCoy: I was used to prepare food, YOU POINTY-EARED AUTOMATON.
Jim: Oh look...toast
A mass spectrometer needs to be a certain size since it ionizes a molecule to break it into smaller pieces and then passes them through a magnetic field. The charge (of the ion fragments) interacts with the magnetic field to cause the path of the fragment to bend. The radius of the curvature of the deflection is correlated to the mass/charge ratio, thus the mass spectrometer will tell how massive the fragments are. By knowing the mass of the fragments, the formula and structure of the compound can be elucidated by using a few tricks based on the isotopic abundance of elements in the earth.
Wikipedia has a pretty good article and diagram.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
why do these things have to be so large in the first place. Anyone in the know point me to a good explanation of how these work?
Here for some vague info on how a spectrometer works. Basically you have to turn the stuff to gas (so you need a heating unit), then you have to ionize it, then you shove the whole lot into a magnetic field of known strength.
Since the degree of deflection of a particle when it passes through the magnetic field is proportional to a) charge and b) mass of the particle, what you end up measuring is a series of peaks at certain points on a graph. This info (when compared to charts of known compounds) lets you know the composition of the substance you tested. That's the way it was at the beginning.
Then someone said why don't we just stream the particles from a homogenized sample, and vary the strength of the magnetic field. That way we simplify our detection part of the equipmet.
This is a very general idea of the principles, obviously you could spend years learning all the techniques, and I haven't been in a lab for a while. At the beginning all we could work out was the types of elements involved in a compound, and empirical formulae. The separation and ionization techniques have been refined somewhat, and now we can compare different molecules instead of atoms, which helps a great deal in figuring out what we're looking at.
Getting back to your question, the unit invariably has to be a bit bulky since you need a) a powerful magnet and b) an adequate distance to "catch" all the particles you are interested in.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df /Body_painting.JPG
While it is a new design, and has different features, this is in fact not the first tricorder that has been made.
http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/0996September/Sparky/tr icorder.html talks about the very first "tricorder," but it doesn't look like it was very successful. Maybe Purdue's device will stick around longer.
By the way, something that is very interesting to note is that Gene Roddenberry allows anyone who creates devices like the ones in Star Trek (and presumably its variations) can use the names used in the show. Get to work all you Trekkie engineers!
So I will predict the first mass use of Purdue's Tricorder: Japanese toilets!!!. It can already recognize "biomarkers" in urine, so someone will build a cheap version of it into a toilet and every time you take a dump it will tell you what you should not have been eating, how sick you will be tomorrow and that if you continue that way your insurance won't cover your therapy. It will save the health systems billions.
The first use will be counterterrorism/counterinsurgency, the second law enforcement. In the law enforcement context they will analyze the air around you when they stop you to chat, pull you over, etc. The molecules leaving your body/clothing/car will enter the public domain atmosphere and be fair game for analysis. It think there is precedent from having dogs sniff the exterior of a car at a border crossing, the pot smell entered the public domain, the trained dog signaled, instant probably cause for a search. Similar justifications will be safety related. "I need to interview you, but first for your safety and mine, I need to scan you."
a handy 20-lb. device
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
30 years ago, a simple +-*/ calculator was easily twice the size of today's standard calculators.
Yes, yes, and the ENIAC was bigger still. We all know that technology generally advances if you look at long enough stretches of time. What's not obvious to the young, though, is that this change is not smooth, uniform and linear like their coursework, but choppy, multiplex and shaped by random social and market forces. "Two steps forward, one step back" has left a hell of a lot of good design buried in the dustbin of history---the tiny Casio included. Its short tenure was not a simple overshoot of a size optimization problem. Who's to say it wouldn't succeed now that science and engineering include many more people with small fingers, pockets and handbags (i.e. girls, women, people from developing countries)? The longer you work in technology (especially design), the greater the chances that you'll profit by unearthing some of the treasures buried in the archeology of your own field. The past isn't just for dissing.
Nope, not unless the Supreme Court is overthrown. They ruled several years ago in a case involving the police use of FLIR to spy on the houses of suspected pot growers, that the use of remote sensing equipment without a warrant is a violation of the "Unwarranted Search" clause of the Bill of Rights. The cops tried to use the "plain sight" exception, but since we don't see in infrared, the court wasn't having any of it. I think the tricorder would fall under this ruling. Using a tricorder without the express permission of the suspect would be a similar violation.
Though this does bring up an inconsistency. As you pointed out, US law does allow for the use of dogs to detect drugs. Or does the officer have to get permission to use the dog? Not having smuggled drugs, this is an area I'm woefully ignorant in.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.