Sly Detectors

摘要

Have a sore throat? before long you may not have to see a physician to find out what's wrong: you'll be able to smear a little phlegm on a test kit in the privacy of your own bathroom and discover in minutes whether it's strep or some other bug. Traveling in the tropics? Soon you'll be able to drink the water—or at least, you will if it gets an OK from the nifty little water-quality monitor you've brought along, conveniently attached to your key chain. Small, cheap, fast and easy to use: those are the boasts of a budding breed of biosensor. Few of these consumer devices are on the market yet, besides a popular one that diabetics can use to measure their blood-sugar levels. But their day is coming, according to countless enthusiastic inventors—from engineers at Georgia Tech Research Institute in Atlanta to chemists at the Co-operative Research Centre for Molecular Engineering and Technology outside Sydney, Australia.