Ferrobotic swarms enable accessible and adaptable automated viral testing.

Expanding our global testing capacity is critical to preventing and containing pandemics. Accordingly, accessible and adaptable automated platforms that in decentralized settings perform nucleic acid amplification tests resource-efficiently are required. Pooled testing can be extremely efficient if the pooling strategy is based on local viral prevalence; however, it requires automation, small sample volume handling and feedback not available in current bulky, capital-intensive liquid handling technologies.

A touch-based multimodal and cryptographic bio-human-machine interface.

The awareness of individuals’ biological status is critical for creating interactive and adaptive environments that can actively assist the users to achieve optimal outcomes. Accordingly, specialized human–machine interfaces—equipped with bioperception and interpretation capabilities—are required. To this end, we devised a multimodal cryptographic bio-human–machine interface (CB-HMI), which seamlessly translates the user’s touch-based entries into encrypted biochemical, biophysical, and biometric indices.