Get ready for another step towards our dystopian future as scientists have invented a way to track and monitor what we eat. This 2mm x 2mm wireless sensor can be mounted on to teeth and can track everything that goes into your mouth. Currently it can monitor salt, glucose, and alcohol intake. The sensor then communicates wirelessly to a mobile device that tracks the data. Future revisions are predicted to monitor a wide range of nutrients and chemicals that can get ingested.
It uses an interesting method to both sense the target chemicals and communicate its data. It consists of a sandwich of three layers with the central layer being a biosensor that reacts to certain chemicals. The complete sandwich forms a tiny RFID antenna and when RF signals are transmitted to the device, some of the signal gets absorbed by the antenna and the rest reflected back.
The mechanism is similar to how chromatography works for chemical analysis where certain chemicals absorb light wavelengths of specific frequencies. Passing a calibrated light source through a gas column and observing the parts of the spectrum that get absorbed allows researchers to identify certain chemicals inside the column.
This technology is based on previous research with”tooth tatoos” that could be used by dentists to monitor your oral health. Now this tiny wireless sensor has evolved to monitoring the dietary intake of people for health purposes but we’re pretty sure Facebook is eyeing it for more nefarious purposes too.
Nice try :D:D
This is no April fools joke. See the original article posted on 22 Mar 2018
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/tooth-mounted-trackers-fitness-wearables/story?id=53932054
Spoiler!
I am sure it uses it bluetooth, not RFID!
Bluetooth Where is the power to the module ?
+1
clenching your teeth charges it for 12 hours
the more you clean the more you charge
Don’t need power if radio can supply power: http://altereddimensions.net/2014/lucille-ball-picks-up-morse-code-radio-through-dental-work-fillings
Piezo elements transform pressure into electricity. For the sake of April 1st we’ll ignore that the generated current would be unusable for anything but lighters:)
I think 3D printers ale like Python. People like to play with theirs and they squirt out funny stuff.
It’s that day of the year again…
Hmm. It was on Slashdot about one week ago:
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/03/24/2013250/researchers-test-tooth-mounted-sensor-enabled-chips
So unless Slashdot now has negative lag (who knows? I always have that creepy feeling that their captcha is sentient), this isn’t an April’s Fool.
TIL slashdot is still around. Whatever happened to getting web site DDoS’d because slashdot posted a link to that web site?
getbitbrush.com wow…
“Get ready for another step towards our dystopian future as scientists have invented a way to track and monitor what we eat.”
Yeah, but they still haven’t invented a way to track and monitor WHO I eat.
This is the future Amazon WYEIWYP, What You Eat Is What You Pay ;-)
I thought that was “What You Eat Is What You Poop”
No bluetooth? har har har….glug glug glug….arf arf arf
Anybody else think “12 Monkeys”?
Eeep. That’s got a definite SCP Foundation vibe to it.
You confused ‘chromatography’ with ‘spectroscopy’. Chromatography is used to separate chemicals. Spectroscopy is used to identify and/or quantify chemicals. The two techniques can be combined. For example, an UV/VIS detector can be coupled to a liquid-chromatography column to detect the chemicals as the exit (“elute”) one by one from the chromatography column, by measuring their absorbance of light in the ultraviolet or visible part of the spectrum.