If you search Instagram for “#selfie,” you’ll get a whopping 62,835,942 photos. The smartphone self-portraits dominate the social media world. And now, selfies aren’t only fun to shoot and share; now they could save your life.
Engineers at Cornell University have developed technology that uses color analysis from phone camera images to test cholesterol levels. The device “optically detects biomarkers” in a drop of blood, sweat or saliva, developers say. Called the Smartphone Cholesterol Application for Rapid Diagnostics, or “smartCARD,” the test can read levels in just about a minute.
More than 70 million Americans have high cholesterol, which is a known cause for stroke and heart disease according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how it works.
The user places a drop of blood on a test strip that analyzes a series of chemical reactions. After that, a smartphone app uses “colorimetric analysis,” to discern the results.
The kit includes a device that attaches over the lens of a smartphone camera. When you shoot a photo of your face, a built-in flash sends out uniform and diffuse light over the image area. Then the color hues in the photo are compared with the color hues on the test strip. The results are then displayed within an app on your phone.
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Jay Jay Ghatt is also editor at Techyaya.com, founder of the JayJayGhatt.com and JayJayGhatt.com where she teaches online creators how to navigate digital entrepreneurship and offers Do-It-For-You Blogging Service. She manages her lifestyle sites BellyitchBlog, Jenebaspeaks and JJBraids.com and is the founder of BlackWomenTech.com 200 Black Women in Tech On Twitter. Her biz podcast 10 Minute Podcast is available on iTunes and Player.fm. Follow her on Twitter at @Jenebaspeaks. Buy her templates over at her legal and business templates on Etsy shop!
