FYI,
WRISTWATCH SENSORS TO DETECT POLLUTANTS
The Vancouver Sun
Mon 08 Mar 2004
Page: A1 / Front
Byline: Chad Skelton
Groundbreaking research being conducted at UBC on "microsensors" -- tiny
chips that can analyse environmental pollutants -- means that in a few
years you may be able to buy a watch that can detect everything from a bad
smog day to an anthrax attack.
At the moment, the closest thing there is to a "portable" air-quality
sensor is a heavy, clunky machine about the size of a brick -- which
retails for about $10,000.
But Winnie Chu, laboratory manager at UBC's new Centre for Health and
Environment, has developed a chip that does the same thing. It's about the
size of an eraser -- two centimetres long and one centimetre wide.
Implanted into a wristwatch, Chu said, the whole thing would probably cost
no more than $300.
Chu stressed that her research has not focused on terrorism, but said it
could be used to identify biological agents, like anthrax, that some fear
could be used in a terrorist attack.
Other sensors, modified somewhat, could test water samples for deadly
bacteria like E. coli.
see also that link:
http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2004/04mar04/microgadgets.html
Jean Tétreault
Senior Conservation Scientist/ Acting Manager of the Preventive
Conservation Section
Canadian Conservation Institute
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