how iphones helped solve a medical mystery

While hospital pneumatic tubes work well a lot of the time, sometimes there are mishaps - contents of containers might spill for example, or objects get stuck, or blood samples clot. There are all kinds of ways of finding out the problem spots in pneumatic tubes - I am currently writing a book chapter on how sound is used for example. But today I wanted to write about another method used recently at the University of Virginia - the iphone repair method.

Two pathology professors at the university theorised that it may be due to points of high pressure that there were problems and sent two iphones through their hospital tubes to check. One phone had a sensor app and a light source and the other recorded the journey of a blood sample. The footage surprised them - the blood's journey was like a blender, "like you are mixing a margarita". The hospital no longer sends their blood on long journeys to avoid the cocktail-effect.

You can read more and listen to the story here, on WVTF public radio.