Scan Your Food

 

Imagine if you were out getting lunch and you open your wrapper to bite into that hamburger for your first bite... So good right? Well do you ever think about all the bacteria on your food and how clean the kitchen was where it came from? How about at work and sharing in on a co-worker's homemade cooking? Do you ever think that you are eating food that is covered by someone else's bacteria? Let's face it bacteria and germs are everywhere. Bacteria are apart of everyday life for us humans and we fight a daily battle with them in many aspects of our life. But often times we don't think about how clean our food is. I mean think about it most of the time we are on the go when we are eating our food right? Or maybe just in general it's an almost an inconvenience to worry about bacteria in our food. It's almost like we have come to expect the best quality in our foods.

Maybe sometime in the near future we will be able to scan our food with a device that attaches to your cell phone. This prototype device attaches to a typical cell phone camera and uses fluorescence imaging to detect the bacteria. Engineers at UCLA combined quantum dots, a type of tiny semiconductor, with capillaries containing antibodies. When the capillaries contain an E. coli sample, they emit light. The cell phone attachment thereby works like a fluorescent microscope, illuminating the presence of the n m for a multitude of applications.

It's not clear whether this food scanner will ever reach the market, but it shows the potential, especially for portable technology.

You can find more about this at: E. Coli Scanner