'I'm a Doctor, Not a Physicist!'

Always wanted a tricorder? The X Prize Foundation is kicking off a new contest, and this one is to encourage the development of a mobile diagnostic device, reports Katharine Gammon at MIT's Technology Review. While the details of the $10 million Tricorder X Prize are still being hashed out, Gammon says "the goal is likely to be a device that can perform a number of diagnostic tests and combine these with artificial intelligence to determine whether a subject has a particular malady." The contest is to be launched in 2012, though Eric Topol at the Scripps Translational Science Institute tells Gammon that the prize won't be won until a number of technologies, including sequencing and imaging, come together.