Jan 22, 2014 04:02 PM EST By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Based off the color changing mechanisms of turkey faces, bioengineers at UC Berkeley designed an inexpensive and easy to use detector of toxic substances, according to the school's press release. The device and its future implications were published Tuesday in the journal, Nature Communications.

A turkey's wrinkly face changes colors depending on its emotional state, a process controlled by collagen and the amount of room it allows for blood vessels to expand (red face) and contract (white face). Truly, it is how the light reflects within those blood vessels that results in color change.

How light is "generated and changes in nature" is exactly what drives the work and laboratory of Seung-Wuk Lee, UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering and leader of the study, according to the release.

Using the same principles that induce turkey face change and a benign virus that mimics the properties of collagen, Lee and colleagues created a bio-litmus test for toxic substances and designed the iColour Analyser to help smartphone users quickly and accurately interpret the test results.

"Our system is convenient, and it is cheap to make," said Lee. "We also showed that this technology can be adapted so that smartphones can help analyze the color fingerprint of the target chemical. In the future, we could potentially use this same technology to create a breath test to detect cancer and other diseases."

Not only is Lee's design easier to use and more accurate than other biosensors, it's not limited to the same small number of toxins that other sensors are. Also, it's much easier to make.

Based on UC Berkeley's press release, it's unclear how useful the test will be for the general public at the moment. It does detect alcohol, so perhaps it could be used as a cheap, pick-up gimmick for a tech-savvy science nerd at a university bar.

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit