3 ms·

We need tricorders for food.

• Animats 12y ago
  That's quite feasible if you're willing to have some single-use item that contains the necessary chemicals. There are hand-held blood analyzers that use little plastic discs for each test. Each disc has a pattern of small slots and channels preloaded with various chemicals needed for the test. A few drops of blood are put into a hole in the disc. The hand-held device then rotates the disc to cause mixing, then spins it at high speed for centrifuging, then looks at different parts of the disc with optical sensors. It works, but the discs tend to have a high markup, like print cartridges.