Breath

Traditional Chinese medicine has long analyzed breath as a way to assess human health and in recent times state-of-the-art technology has been brought to this approach to diagnose various diseases and even stress. Swiss researchers at ETH Zurich and at the University Hospital Zurich are continuing to advance this field by developing a “breathprinting” technique using mass spectrometry that they hope will become competitive with the established analysis methods based on blood and urine.  Read More

Most of us are able to let other people know that we’re stressed, simply by telling them. For people such as those suffering from Alzheimer’s, however, it can be difficult to express such a thought. That’s why UK scientists at Loughborough University and Imperial College London are developing a new test that can determine someone’s stress levels by analyzing their breath.  Read More

There are already plenty of devices that allow people to measure factors such as their caloric intake and physical activity levels. While such data can be a vital part of achieving your fitness goals, its usefulness is limited without an understanding of your specific metabolism – if you don’t know how fast you burn calories, for instance, then you won’t know how many you should be consuming and/or burning. That’s why researchers at Arizona State University developed the Breezing portable metabolism tracker.  Read More

Digital wind controllers like the Morrison Digital Trumpet give players the power to go beyond mere instrument clones and make virtually any instrument or sound available to the musician. More recently, Ashanti's Beatjazz Hands combined breath, pressure and motion sensors to bring gestures into the equation and free him from the confines of a computer screen. The problem in using such systems for folks with limited cognitive abilities or physical disability is that they can't effectively be used hands-free. A skiing accident in the 1980s left Dave Whalen a quadriplegic, and his burning desire to continue making music has led to the development of Jamboxx, a harmonica-like digital instrument that can be played and controlled using just the head.  Read More

Almost anyone who owns a dog will tell you that they love it unconditionally. However, I think they would also agree that dogs have some unpleasant odors from time to time. Many of these odors originate from the K9’s mouth – imagine how badly your mouth would smell if you only brushed your teeth every year or so when you paid a visit to the veterinarian. The Orapup is designed to clear up bad dog breath by cleaning the tongue.  Read More

Although it’s normal for infants to have some disruptions in their breathing while sleeping, prolonged periods of sleep apnea can cause their blood oxygen levels to fall dangerously low, sometimes even resulting in death – this is a particular risk for babies born prematurely. Usually, when an infant does stop breathing while asleep, all that’s required to get them started again is a gentle nudge or some other kind of disturbance. Unfortunately, however, neonatal wards in developing nations are often understaffed, so nurses might not notice a non-breathing infant until it’s too late. That’s why a group of five bioengineering students from Houston’s Rice University invented the Babalung Apnea Monitor.  Read More

For decades now, scientists have been monitoring air pollution in order to better understand how atmospheric contaminants affect our health. The gathered data can tell us the amount and type of pollutants that are in the air, which can in turn sometimes be linked to health problems in the area. What that data doesn’t tell us, however, is the effect that different types of physical activities can have on the amount of pollutants that are breathed in – if a smog warning is issued, for instance, does that mean we shouldn’t go outside at all, or just that we shouldn’t go jogging outside? A new personal exposure monitoring device, known as the MicroPEM, has been designed to answer such questions.  Read More

Scientists – and dogs – have known for some time that our breath can reveal much more about us than our estimated blood alcohol content. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe that “breathalyzer”-like technology they currently have under development could be used to diagnose a wide range of diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and infections. Such technology, which relies on the fact that many diseases alter the body’s metabolism in distinctive ways, would provide a non-invasive method of detecting disease even before typical symptoms appear.  Read More

Asthmatics have it hard enough when they’re awake, having to periodically use their inhalers, or remove themselves from situations that could trigger an attack. For some of them, however, their symptoms get even worse when they go to bed, preventing them from getting a good night’s sleep. Airsonett, a Swedish medical tech company, is attempting make life easier for those people. It has created a device called the Protexo, which it claims should be of great assistance to night-time asthma sufferers.  Read More