Here’s a face mask that goes the extra mile.
As has been mentioned earlier, your TMR staffers have had a Christmas party covid scare, a development which has proven to be a far greater bonding exercise than the actual event itself. (Not to say the party wasn’t fun!)
But for next Christmas, your Back Page correspondent knows exactly what he wants as an early gift from Santa: a glow-in-the-dark face mask that alerts the wearer and others if they’ve been exposed to covid cooties.
We hope it looks a bit like this.
The must-have party accessory has been developed by boffins at the Kyoto Prefectural University in Japan, and, pending further testing and government approvals, could be retailing to the general public later next year.
The scientists say they created the mask to give folks a quick and easy way to see if they contracted the coronavirus, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo News.
The key to the mask is a spray-on filter containing antibodies and a fluorescent dye which will glow under a UV light highlighting areas of the mask that have been contaminated with covid.
The antibodies are the real star of the show here because they come from ostrich eggs. Ostriches, it transpires, produce a range of antibodies to fight covid infections and the antibodies can be mass-produced from ostrich eggs at a low cost.
To harvest the antibodies, the researchers injected an inactive and non-threatening form of the coronavirus into female ostriches, then successfully extracted large quantities of antibodies from the eggs they laid.
So this time next year, instead of QR codes and vax certificates at the venue entrances, we could be seeing bouncers armed with UV lights instead. And behind them will hang a poster saying: “If you glow, then it’s a no.”
If you see something that lights up your life, flash it on over to felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au
