Still counting your calories? That's so 2014.

Hey guys, Tara here for Dnews - with one of the coolest inventions I've seen in a very

long time.

A company called Consumer Physics just Kickstarted the Scio - which is a molecular scanner that

can scan physical objects and give you a breakdown of their chemical makeup.

It works by flashing a beam of infrared light onto whatever material you're scanning, then

uses a built-in spectrometer to analyze the light that gets reflected back. The spectrometer

determines the absorption rate of the material - which is different for every object - and

then cross-references that against a database of materials, to figure out it is. It then

sends that data back to your smartphone over Bluetooth LE.

So for food, you would scan an item, enter the approximate weight of what you're about

to eat, and within seconds, you get a neat little breakdown of the calories, fats, carbs,

and proteins in it. Amazingly, it can also gauge the quality of the food you're eating

- so things like produce quality, ripeness, and spoilage in foods like cheese, fruits

& vegetables, sauces, salad dressings, etc.

But it's not just for food! It also works on plants and medications. For plants, it

can analyze the moisture levels and tell you when you need to water them. And for drugs

- the example they give, is that if you were to order medication online, from say another

country - you could scan it, to make sure it's legit.

Over time, the goal is to expand Scio to cover just about any physical object - cosmetics,

clothes, jewels, plastics - even human tissue and bodily fluids. One day, its creators hope

to see the technology built straight into smartphones - which would be amazing.

When it ships, the Scio will cost $149. And they've already quintupled their Kickstarter

goal of $200K, with several weeks left to go. So if you wanna back it, head over to

their Kickstarter by June 15th.

And hey - speaking of great inventions, Discovery Digital and BASF are teaming up once again

- to encourage kids to use their imagination and demonstrate their knowledge of all things

science.

Children in grades K-8 are asked to submit a 2-4 minute video about an educational and

creative science experiment related to chemistry, sustainability innovation, technology, or

energy.

One Grand Prize winner will receive a $10,000 college scholarship, along with an iPad and

a Stuff To Blow Your Mind prize pack.

To enter, just submit your video to stufftoblowyourmind.com/science-awards by May 23rd. The winner will be announced

June 6th, and the winning video will be featured on StuffToBlowYourMind.com. So get your submissions

in!

In the meantime, if you have questions, comments, anything you wanna say about this episode,

leave em in the comments below. Otherwise, thanks for watching!