A light-reading chip that costs about $10 could put lab tests in your pocket

The machines that identify what is in a blood sample or a sip of water are usually big, delicate and expensive. A team at the University of Cambridge has built the light-reading heart of one — a spectrometer, which identifies substances by how they interact with light — onto a chip costing roughly $10. It reads near-infrared light in under a second and shrugs off noise that defeats other tiny designs, opening the door to precise testing in wearables, handheld gadgets and clinics far from a big laboratory.

SDG 9 · Industry, innovation and infrastructure — Mechanism: tech innovation