We already rely on them for news, weather reports and keeping up with friends and family, but soon our smartphones could have one more important function: detecting pregnancies.
A team at the Hanover Centre for Optical Technologies (HOT), University of Hanover, Germany have developed a self-contained fiber optic sensor for smartphones with the potential for use in a wide variety of biomolecular tests, including those for detecting pregnancy or monitoring diabetes.
The readings of the sensor, run through a smartphone app, provide real-time results and it even can monitor multiple types of body fluids, including: blood, urine, saliva, sweat or breath, improving the possibilities significantly.
“We have the potential to develop small and robust lab-on-a-chip devices for smartphones.” inventor Kort Bremer told the journal Optics Express.
