If you or your child have a food allergy, it can be very frightening and sometimes deadly.  While there are labeling laws, the average consumer has no way to know if there really is any deadly ingredients in their food.  Even residual materials can be enough to cause very serious problems.  So the consumer is forced to just trust that the companies they are purchasing their food from are following the laws and being careful to not cross contaminate.  That is until now.

At the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, they have developed a device they call the iTube.  Associate professor Aydogan Ozcan was tasked as the team leader.  This is a groundbreaking system that turns your average smartphone into an allergen sensor.  Prior to this technology, detectors were large and very complex.  The iTube is a system that the average person can use, and lives will be saved.

The iTube weighs in at only 1.41 oz and attaches directly to your smartphone and detects with lab level sensitivities.  The device has the ability to detect allergens such as gluten, eggs, and various types of nuts.

While this system does not provide instant results and there is a series of processes that have to be done, it only takes 20 minutes to get a for sure answer if something is safe or not.

The iTube uses a colorimetric assay process to detect allergens.  It works, simply put, by coloring allergens and measuring the concentration of the color with your smartphone’s camera via an app on the device.  To analyze a sample, it must be ground up and mixed in hot water.  You place that in a small test tube along with an extraction solvent.  After the mixture is allowed to settle for several minutes a series of chemical reagents is mixed in.  A pair of LEDs light the tube and the app compares the sample and control and provides a result in parts per million.

The test results are time stamped and uploaded to iTube servers where you can keep track of a personalized allergy database for future reference.

“We envision that this cell phone–based allergen testing platform could be very valuable, especially for parents, as well as for schools, restaurants and other public settings,” Ozcan said. “Once successfully deployed in these settings, the big amount of data – as a function of both location and time – that this platform will continuously generate would indeed be priceless for consumers, food manufacturers, policymakers and researchers, among others.”

The fact that these consumer level technologies are being produced will be a relief for parents of children with a deadly allergy.  While we have no word on the price of this system yet, it will be considerably less than the available systems now.  When it hits the shelf, I’m sure it will fill a need in the marketplace for consumer level testing.

Do you or a family member suffer from a deadly food allergy?  Would you want this to be able to test your food?

[ source ]

The post The Greatest App Ever: Food Allergy Tester for your Smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Display technology is advancing at breakneck speed. It wasn’t that long ago that we thought the idea of OLED technology or flexible displays was completely novel. Now, researchers at UCLA have come up with the world’s first fully stretchable OLED display. This is quite different from just being bendable.

That’s because they can take this strip of OLED and pull it, stretching that light to expand up to 45 percent along one axis. This flexible and stretchable property could make this kind of tech remarkably useful for applications like robotic skin and other embedded medical devices. They could be worn like skin-tight clothing, bringing us that much closer to the future we see in sci-fi movies.

To achieve this, the scientists took a plastic that emits light when electricity runs through it, and put that polymer between two layers of carbon nanotube electrode. The office laminating device pushed out the air bubbles and ensured the circuit would be complete. The exact science is certainly beyond me, but this proof of concept is pretty cool. It is just the first step, though, as the stretchable OLED currently only shows off a single band of color, which isn’t all that useful for displaying real information. However, as this tech gets better, who knows what’ll be grafted to our skin in the near future?

The post Stretchable OLED display expands up to 45 percent in size appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The breakthrough was a result of a collaboration by neuroscientists at the University of Louisville, University of California, Los Angeles and the California Institute of Technology. Before receiving the spinal implant, known as an epidural stimulating array, Summers underwent two years of training on a treadmill with a harness supporting his weight and researchers moving his legs. The training did not improve Summers’ paralysis. However, after receiving the spinal implant and a few weeks of training, Summers could stand up using his own leg muscles. With the aid of a harness support and some therapist assistance, he could make stepping motions on a treadmill. Summers was eventually able to voluntarily move his toes, ankles, knees and hips on command.

Unfortunately, Summers had no voluntary control over his limbs when the electrical stimulation was turned off. However, if the effect could be replicated in further studies, individuals with spinal-cord injuries could potentially use a portable stimulation unit equipped with a walker, and stand independently, maintain balance and even take some steps. It should be noted the Summers had some sensation in his lower extremities after his injury, which means that the spinal cord was not completely severed, which may have affected the success of his recovery.

The Food and Drug Administration gave the research team approval to test five spinal-cord injury patients to see if the findings can be replicated. In subsequent trials, patients who experience no sensation will be implanted with the device, to see if this influences the outcome. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health with additional support provided by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

The post Paralyzed Man Stands and Takes Steps After Spinal Implant appeared first on Mobile Magazine.