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The Discovery FilesBody heat!
Imagine! The body's own heat powering a simple medical device you wear to take your temperature! Researchers have developed battery technology that uses thermal energy, produced by body heat, to power a low-profile, wearable device that detects if you have a fever. It could also do temperature checks and accurate, rapid fever detection in large crowds. Learn more at NSF's "The Discovery Files."
Credit: National Science Foundation
Body Heat!
Hi! I'm Mo Barrow with The Discovery Files, from NSF -- the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Imagine! The body's own heat powering a simple medical device, one you wear, that can take your temperature!
As the nation and the world navigates the coronavirus and its different variants, getting one's temperature checked is becoming more and more routine.
Any device that can quickly do temperature checks on large groups of people, and do so cheaply, will prove a significant tool in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and other viral infections.
An NSF-funded team of researchers at Texas A & M University have developed battery technology that uses thermal energy, produced by body heat, to power a low-profile, wearable device that detects if you have a fever.
It assesses the thermal energy generated, seeking any difference in temperature caused by a fever, and is self-sustaining technology that can make temperature changes easy to see.
The device could allow for public temperature checks and accurate rapid fever detection in large crowds.
Now that's using body heat to take the temperature of medical advances.
Discover how the U.S. National Science Foundation is advancing research at nsf.gov.
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