There are few things that can make your heart drop faster than seeing the check engine light on your dashboard blink on. You might wait for a day or two to see if it goes away, but it taunts you – just glowing all smug and ominous until you finally give in and take it in to get checked out.

Fixd is a tool that you can use at home to decide whether your check engine light indicates a serious problem that needs to be addressed right away or one that can wait. It’s a small device that plugs into the OBD-II port on your car to read whatever error messages are causing the problem light(s) on your dashboard.

This is the same type of diagnostic tool used by mechanics, but it will save you the “diagnostic fee” they typically charge. The app that accompanies Fixd tells you where the problem is, what the consequences of the problem might be, and approximately how much you can expect to spend o the repair. The app, which communicates with the plug-in dongle via Bluetooth, also helps you track scheduled maintenance and service.

The app stores information on multiple cars so you can keep track of important information on the state of all of the cars in your household. Fixd is raising money on Kickstarter to fund the production of the dongle and development of the iOS app (the Android app is already up and running). As of the time of publication, the project has already surpassed its funding goal.

The post Car Diagnostic App Tells You What That Dash Light Means first appeared on Gajitz.

Bees are integral to the health of our planet, but they are also surprisingly good at detecting health problems in humans. Designer Susanna Soares built an unusual series of diagnostic devices that use this incredible ability to detect a variety of human maladies.

Studies have shown that bees can detect a wide range of diseases from diabetes to cancer to tuberculosis simply by recognizable odors in a human’s breath or apocrine (sweat) glands.

Soares’ project involved a set of glass objects and a small number of bees. The bees can be trained for their specific task in just ten minutes using a food reward system – and they retain this knowledge for the rest of their lives.

Each glass object is made of two chambers: a large chamber that holds the bees (only for a very short time) and a smaller enclosure that serves as the diagnosis area. To use the system, a human blows into one of the objects or allows the scent of their sweat to enter the diagnosis chamber. If the bees rush into the diagnosis area, this means that they detected the illness they were trained to recognize. If they stay in the larger chamber, the diagnosis is negative.

We can’t be sure how medically accurate this particular project is, but bees do have an incredible sense of smell ranging in the parts-per-trillion neighborhood. The medical community has already recognized the potential of bees as biosensors and in some areas have used them to help in early detection of some cancers and other diseases.

The post Ingenious Devices Use Bees to Detect Diseases in Humans first appeared on Gajitz.

The ability to diagnose diseases quickly, accurately and inexpensively can make a huge difference in global health, but so far our diagnostic methods are all fairly involved, not to mention costly and time-consuming. A team of researchers from UC Berkeley, Dublin City University and Universidad de Valpairaiso has made an astounding breakthrough in the field of microfluidics that could revolutionize the way diseases are diagnosed and treated in remote locations and third-world countries. The Self-powered Integrated Microfluidic Blood Analysis System (or SIMBAS) is basically a diagnostic lab on a single chip that diagnoses blood diseases in a matter of minutes without the use of electricity, chemicals or any special equipment.

The SIMBAS chip takes whole blood samples and uses tiny microfluidic channels to separate plasma from blood cells. Gravity pulls the blood cell samples through the biomarker detection area and the chip is able to provide an accurate diagnosis for diseases like AIDS and tuberculosis within 10 minutes. The 1-inch X 2-inch chip is inexpensive to produce, doesn’t take up much space and can be used anywhere. According to the researchers, the SIMBAS chip is as easy to use as a home pregnancy test and as accurate as a traditional lab test – and it could save millions of lives. Eventually, the same technology could be used to diagnose conditions like heart disease, sepsis, cancer and other diseases in developed countries also.

The post Disease Detection in Minutes With Incredible Plastic Biochips first appeared on Gajitz.