Man, listening to what your body is telling you can be so difficult. Am I thirsty? How should I know? How do thirst happens? Worry not, dehydrated dummies, because soon you might be able to buy a computer that will burrow into your skin and tell you whether or not you are thirsty so you don’t have to think about it anymore.
The watch-sized biosensor, below, sits on the surface of your skin and uses the tiniest of needles—so thin that they don’t even activate any nerves in your body, so usage is completely painless—to draw out and sample interstitial fluid from between your cells and determine just how hydrated you are. It’s currently being developed by a team of researchers from Sandia National Laboratories, who hope to one day modify it to measure sodium and calcium in the body as well.
As facetious as we’re being about the idea of needing a sensor to figure out if you’re thirsty, there are actually practical applications for this technology that would benefit a lot of people. It’s designed for doctors to use with patients who need to maintain particular levels of hydration and minerals in their body. Athletes might also eventually use it to determine when they need to replenish their electrolytes. After all, people don’t sweat Gatorade in real life, so it’s a lot harder to tell when you’ve run out.
“This is the future of personalized health care,” said research leader Ronen Polsky. “These wearable technologies are just starting to come out in different forms. It’s inevitable that people will go there.”
(via TechCrunch, image via Randy Montoya, featured image via Alonso Inostrosa Psijas)
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