A team of researchers at the Pohang University of Science & Technology in South Korea created a passive sweat collection device that is inspired by cactus spines. The device is intended as a means to collect sweat for biomedical analysis; for instance, to measure glucose levels in patients with diabetes. Having the ability to operate without a power source, the patch can passively collect tiny amounts of sweat efficiently, helping to unlock the potential of sweat analysis technology.

Sweat analysis holds enormous promise as a way to diagnose and monitor a variety of diseases. The basic idea is that a patch worn on the skin will non-invasively collect sweat and then analyze it. The technique has many advantages in terms of non-invasive sampling and continuous monitoring, but has so far failed to take off as a viable alternative to sampling other body fluids, such as blood or urine.

Part of the problem lies in obtaining enough sweat to analyze without first asking someone to perform activities, such as exercise, that induce profuse sweating. This is hardly convenient, so devices that can maximize the amount of sweat they collect may help the technology to progress to an unobtrusive wearable that can monitor disease without any hassle.

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