Dr. Beverly Crusher and Her Tricorder

I'm a nerd, total nerd. And I love Star Trek! The coolest thing about Star Trek was Dr. Crusher and her Tricorder. She'd whip that thing out, wave it over someone, and deterimine if their insides were all busted up, and then beam the patient back up to the ship to get em all fixed up.

Guess what?

They'll get here before the 24th Century

Probably before the end of the year, perhaps!

New handheld medical scanners coupled with regular cell phones resemble "Star Trek" tricorders and could see what ails you with a push of a button.

The invention, using off-the-shelf cell phone technology, would allow medical scanners could boldly go where none have gone before - to the aid of the roughly three-quarters of the world's population currently without access to ultrasounds, X-rays and other imagers used for everything from detecting tumors to monitoring fetuses.

Pretty neat, huh?

These portable scanners "could open up whole new avenues of health care for the developing world," Rubinsky said. "Health professionals in rural clinics could affordably get the tools they need to properly diagnose and treat their patients."

Although diagnosis and treatment of roughly one-fifth of all diseases can benefit from medical imaging, "this advancement has been out of reach for millions of people in the world because the equipment is too costly to maintain," Rubinsky said. "Our system would make imaging technology inexpensive and accessible for these underserved populations."

The scanners could have broad applications in the developed world, too, he said.

"Health professionals in rural clinics could affordably get the tools they need to properly diagnose and treat their patients," Rubinsky said. "If you had a car accident, you could put a cap on the hat of the victim in the ambulance, and before the ambulance even gets to the hospital, all the information can go through the cell phone, maybe to spot if that person has internal bleeding in their head."

This could be such a boon to the developing world. What an awesome future that is coming (of course, lots and lots of big bumps in the road.)

Now they just need to invent the warp drive.....

link to actual paper here
"A New Concept for Medical Imaging Centered on Cellular Phone Technology". Authored by Yair Granot, Antoni Ivorra, Boris Rubinsky. Biophysics Graduate Group, Department of Bioengineering and Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California