By Mike Magee
On March 9, 1967, the Star Trek Classic episode, “The devil in the dark” broadcast for the first time. The Venture had received an urgent emergency call from miners on the planet Janus VI. They literally melt, Horta, an injured resident has focused on liquidating sour rays.
A sympathetic spock hears the call, and in an attempt to announce cause and motivation, “mind-melts” with the being. It turns out that she is only trying to protect her babies against an observed threat. Kirk agrees, and with Spock Belt Dr. McCoy to gain access to the patient’s condition.
What McCoy encounters is a ‘patient with rocky skin’. With the help of his TRICODER, a handheld diagnostic sensor, “Bones” (McCoy’s nickname that refers to the historic 19th -century American jargon “Sawbes ” Referring to surgeons)) Discover a serious and deep gaping wound that requires immediate attention.
Kirk succeeds in “down” a hundred pounds thermoconcreteAnd McCoy uses it professionally to the wound. This is all a set -up for his shipping measures to wonder if this will work, which generates the iconic most repeated line in the legendary history of the series. McCoy (clearly irritated) editions – “How do I know? I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer.”
Similarly challenged modern doctors have been expressing their own frustrations for more than a few decades. But ama has only been scientific in following their dissatisfaction since 2011. The levels of Burn -Out fell slightly in 2025 compared to Piek -Pique in 2021. But under the irritating substances, the integration of new technology remains at the top of the list.
Nobody knew better than McCoy, the mixed blessing of technology. Its original ’23rd century tricooder“Was a miracle of diagnostic science, but also increased ethical dilemmas and patient expectations. The fictional tool was originally the size of a portable tape recorder and served as a general data sensor and analyzer. The medical version was a ‘Hand with high resolution scanner’ that (in the 24th-century version) had a flip-out panel with an extensive screen, which was inspired by the played screen, which was inspired by the extensive screen HP-41C Scientific calculator. “
On May 10, 2011, Qualcomm worked with entrepreneurs to the Ticorder x price, A $ 10 million stimulus for anyone who could update the capacities of the Star Trek-Fictive Model in a handy medical tricin. Five years later, the competition was officially closed, with $ 3.7 million awarded For several participants, who has successfully reproduced all possibilities.
This does not mean that Dreamers once followed in the Star Trek mode to be successors of McCoy. In 2013, 15-year-old Aspen Palatnick A summer internship in the historic Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of Long Island to learn the basic principles of genome analysis. Seven years later, after cooperation with his original professor, Michael Schatz, They developed “the world’s first mobile genome sequence analyzer” as an iPhone app that is called Through.
Cold spring port Their success on December 7, 2020 and said: “The iPhone app was developed as a supplement to the small DNA sequencing devices made by Oxford Nanopore. Palatnick, Now a software engineer at Facebook was already experienced when building iPhone apps when entering the Schatz Laboratory. He and Schatz realized that the smaller the sequencers got smaller, there were no technologies available to have DNA studied that on a mobile device. “The majority of studying DNA: aligning, analyzing is done on large server clusters or high-end laptops … Flying in suitcases full of nanopories and laptops and other servers to perform that analysis in the remote fields (was impractical).
“Portable, accessible and affordable!” That is something that Bones McCoy could find out. In fact, he would be surprised to see what he produced in 2025, and how new technology is being expanded instead of complicating the work of doctors, nurses and medical scientists.
For example, consider the publication that fell on 3 June 2025 Nature. In the report in Science Magazine you could feel the excitement: “During a few weeks in April 2023, the area around Florida in Washington Oaks Gardens State Park was Abuzz. A Bobcat went along, perhaps stalking the Eastern Gray squirrels. An Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, and forthtawls slid through the undergrowth. … scientists see none of these beings directly.
The new technology, “Shotgun sequencing” Can read, analyze and reconstruct large DNA sequences from billions of short sequences. But what is really surprising is the usability of the device in the field. As reported, “At least one newer machine is smaller than a cigarette package and can connect to a laptop compared to earlier machines the size of a small household fridge.”
David Duffy, A biologist at the Whitney Laboratory of the University of Florida for Marine Bioscience and senior author of the new study, originally wanted to grow the article, “On the way to a tricorder,” But it was deterred and stated: “We don’t claim that we are there,” says Duffy. “We say that we are much closer to this actual reality than a few years ago. And you can foresee that it will be a reality in the future.”
Mike Magee MD is a medical historian and a regular contribution to THCB. He is the author of Code Blue: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. (Grove/2020)
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