FC: DNA sniffing and identification based on your breathing

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[A discussion of Penn State Professor Gary Settles' Patent No. US6073499. 
No wonder some politicos want everyone DNA-tested at birth... --Declan]

http://www.feedmag.com/re/re381.2.html

     FEED: Which is at the top of the thermal plume.

     GS: Yes. Basically we collect the entire thermal plume
     and take it from three by three feet at the mouth of the
     sampler down to four by four inches. At that point there
     is a collector on which particles and molecules are
     trapped and/or condense out. Then we reject the air once
     it goes through the mesh and just take the particles and
     molecules that are in it. That goes into the inlet of an ion
     mobility spectrometer. And from that we get a spectrum
     showing the things that were in the plume -- particularly
     explosives, because it's tuned for that.

     FEED: There's been some talk of using the aura sniffer
     to do DNA analysis.

     GS: Yeah. But mitochondrial DNA -- not nuclear DNA.
     We're releasing skin all the time, so it's not like being
     requested to give a DNA sample and having to give
     consent. You can't keep your skin from coming off. So it
     is possible to sample mitochondrial DNA from the
     airborne skin flakes. Of course, before this was ever
     done it would have to go through the same rigorous
     procedure and scrutiny by the ACLU and so forth that
     the other technology does. I'm not advocating it. I'm just
     saying that the possibility exists. The possibility also
     exists to sample a wide variety of medical conditions
     non-obtrusively. And I think that could end up being a
     valuable instrument for medical diagnosis.

     [...]




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