NIST Working On "Deathalyzer"

coondoggie writes to mention that a new optical technique for sensing small amounts of molecules in a person's breath has been developed by a researcher for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The goal is to create a fast, low-cost method for detecting disease. "In this approach, NIST researchers analyze human breath with 'frequency combs,' which are generated by a laser specially designed to produce a series of very short, equally spaced pulses of light. Each pulse may be only a few million billionths of a second long. The laser generates light as a series of very narrow frequency peaks equally spaced, like the teeth of a comb, across a broad spectrum."

Comments

Re:Only One Thing To Debug...

[exploder]

They might debug the name, too. "Breathalyzers" detect alcohol, not breath. A "deathalyzer" sounds like it would be used for autopsies.

Other applications?

[TripMaster Monkey]

I wonder how well this technology could be adapted for other applications, such as detecting contraband in travelers' luggage, or detecting explosives. Perhaps for detecting survivors or casualties during disasters?

Could we be seeing the demise of the drug/bomb sniffing dog with this new tech?

few thousandths?

[MyNymWasTaken]

few million billionths

Is that a few thousandths or a few quadrillionths?

Dr. McCoy had one

[Anonymous Coward]

So we'll be able to wave a flickering sensor over someone to get medical info? Seems familiar...

Sound like a form of hi-tech infra-red scan.

[bornwaysouth]

The article is vague on how it works, but as a once upon a time chemical analyst (way way back), this sounds like it is doing the equivalent of an infra red scan, using rapid chopping the frequency the vibrations. Dunno. I just used the machines, I'm not a physicist. It may be a better way of doing it.

But the concept of detecting for a whole bunch of compounds at once has been around for many decades, as is the idea that you can detect health and sickness states with it. The ideas all seemed to bog down in reality. Pattern detection relies an a massive reliable database. In the article, they focussed on asthma. As a (once) chemist, I noted that hydrogen peroxide was now hydro-peroxide, and the nitrite and nitrate ions were somehow volatile. Not show stoppers, but cause for questioning what they actually were detecting. And rather hi-tech compared to a cardboard peak flow meter.

The social impact if it works is rather similar to gene scanning. If an employer tests applicants for jobs, then not only being a smoker can be detected. Maybe a whole bunch of disease risks. The individual risk increases may not be enough to diagnose a specific disease (so no use to a clinician), but a doubled risk of asthma, heart conditions etc would all ad up to a statistical bad risk. Life insurers also might like the idea.

So you may find it threatening. On the other had, if you are healthy, why have high insurance premiums. Oh well. Definitive tests for disease have been invented before. And people very sharply fall into the Want-to know or Don't-tell-me camps. Having the info acquired under a form of blackmail makes for problems.

Re:couldn't they use this to detect other things?

[TheRealMindChild]

While you are correct about the being able to "test" how intoxicated someone is with pot, I think it less of a matter of "How would we do it?" to more like "How can we test for inability to drive differently?".
 
The breathalyzer HAS worked with alcohol intoxication, but rather than thinking about how we can adapt it to other things, the better approach, I would say, is to just test in a different way. After all, there could be multitudes of things, both legal and illegal, that can put you in a state where you should't be driving... cough medicine, insomnia for days, pain meds from a recent surgery, not wearing your glasses, just being too old etc. A process of evaluation of your driving skills needs to be adopted. Check if pupils are dilated. Check if they can read the sign being held ten feet away. Walk in a straight line. Recall five objects that were spoken thirty seconds ago.
 
A lot of this is part of a sobriety test, but if these tests were streamlined, tweaked, and changed a little, it can be the perfect catch all for anyone who shouldn't be driving... not only those who have been drinking/smoking pot.

Re:Already exists

[Missing_dc]

I wish I had not spent my mod points this morning, this one is not "troll"

    Its perfectly true, having woked at a hospital myself, I can often smell when someone has illnesses and you would be amazed at how many nurses can tell you what a person probably has just by the smell of the room. I've discussed this with many a pretty nurse in the cafeteria. (morbid, I know... it came with the job)