Gifts and Gadgets

For all the diabetics out there who are sick of getting pricked all the time. There's a glucometer in the works that will use lasers to analyze the chemicals in your bloodstream. Pretty hight-tech stuff.

The LighTouch uses a method called Raman spectroscopy to focus a laser--which Chaiken refers to as a "CD-player type of laser that has been kicked up a notch to deliver a purer red color,"--onto the fingertip and analyze the various colors of the light exiting the finger. These colors are indicative of the types and quantities of the different chemicals in the tissue being illuminated by the laser. By making two such measurements, first with the fingertip under no pressure and the second with slight pressure applied to the flesh, researchers are able to compare the measurements and analyze only those colors that come from the part of the fingertip which moves under slight pressure--the blood. The procedure is completely painless and produces results with accuracy and precision comparable to existing fingerstick devices.

In case you're wondering, I first saw this over at gizmodo.