This is the kind of thing that makes me feel both happy and vindicated. Happy in that we can create such wonderful devices (this is first generation, the damn thing will be in happy meals by the end of the century), and vindicated that Star Trek doesn’t seem as childish now that we are creating so many of the devices it predicted. A handheld universal scanner (with a friken mass spectrometer in it) is cool beyond words.

Purdue University researchers have created a handheld sensing system its creators liken to Star Trek’s “tricorder” used to analyze the chemical components of alien worlds. But the system could have down-to-earth applications, such as testing foods for dangerous bacterial contaminants including salmonella, which was recently found in a popular brand of peanut butter.

The new portable system is an ultrafast chemical-analysis tool that has numerous promising uses for detecting everything from cancer in the liver to explosives residues on luggage and “biomarkers” in urine that provide an early warning for diseases.

The instrument is a miniature mass spectrometer combined with a technique called desorption electrospray ionization, or DESI.

Now all we need is warp drive and we’re set. That medical scanner McCoy carried wouldn’t be a bad device to have, either.