People may recall when I posted about this for ECGs. The creator was someone who created new equipment for a major medical company but they wanted only expensive items and he wanted to make medical care more affordable and available for all. Since he was working on a pediatric app we asked, "What about doing a veterinary one while you are at it?" Now vets can do an ECG anywhere for $199. http://www.alivecorvet.com The case fits the iPhone 4. Those can be bought from people who have gone to iPhone 5 until AliveCor Vet makes one that fits the newer phone. Clinical testing so far has been on cats, dogs, and horses. This second piece of equipment is for urine testing but is not available yet in most of the world. http://www.wired.com/business/2013/02/smartphone-becomes-smart-lab/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21586082 UChek measures things like glucose, bilirubin, keytone, specific gravity, blood, pH, and protein levels in urine using an iPhone app. That makes it longer lasting than strips (some of which must be used within weeks to a few months of opening the package) and more affordable while being portable. Back when we had two ferrets who got cystine uroliths we spent a small fortune on urine pH measuring strips during their next 6 years + after stone removal surgeries. This approach is also portable and safe under many environmental conditions. [P.S] Three notes: 1. by "for $199" I am referring to the cost of the product, not the test cost for clients which also can come down 2. the urine testing still uses strips but the mentioned cost for his strips is smaller than what we encountered for the complex strips and they are in packages of 20 instead of 100 so the problem with having the strips destroyed fast after opening no longer exists 3. the strips test for 10 things and the app reads the results more accurately than most people can Sukie (not a vet) Ferrets make the world a game. Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) A nation is as free as the least within it. [Posted in FML 7718]