Health check? Give a blood disc a spin

A wide range of ailments from diabetes and heart disease to liver and kidney damage can be diagnosed in moments from a single drop of patient blood. A pinprick is placed onto a mini-disc embedded with a wide variety of miniaturised test procedures that run as the disc is spun. Developed by Radisens Diagnostics, ESA is working with the Irish company to adapt the technology for astronauts – down on the ground it can also be used in doctors’ surgeries, in place of costly centralised laboratory testing.