One researcher at the University of Georgia, however, is developing a chemical sensor to use these distraught emissions for good.

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Rothberg, addressing the boy as he would a peer, told him the best way to do that would be to create a tiny chemical sensor that could read electrical signals passing between brain cells.

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The trick is to find a way to make this flow rate change when the chemical that the sensor has been designed to detect is present.

ECONOMIST: Medical diagnostics

Emerging sensor technologies like barometer, microbolometers, and chemical sensors will provide even richer user context information.

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In the past we've seen a tongue-based computer interface or two, the BrainPort sight-via-papillae solution, and this week, at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign introduced a sensor about the size of a business card that detects and identifies fourteen common sweeteners -- including Splenda, Sugar in the Raw, and Sweet'n'Low.

ENGADGET: Electronic tongue tastes, identifies sweeteners so you don't have to