The world's first text sent via evaporated vodka read "O Canada."
Researchers created a text-message method to be used when regular cell phone service is unavailable using booze, a York University news release reported.
"Chemical signals can offer a more efficient way of transmitting data inside tunnels, pipelines or deep underground structures. For example, the recent massive clog in London sewer system could have been detected earlier on, and without all the mess workers had to deal with, sending robots equipped with a molecular communication system," Professor Andrew Eckford, in whose lab in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science located in Lassonde School of Engineering, said in the news release.
In this study, the researchers used the chemical signal found in the alcohol content of a stiff glass of vodka. The world's first alcohol-based text was sent about 13 feet (four meters) across a lab with some help from a simple table fan.
"We believe we have sent the world's first text message to be transmitted entirely with molecular communication, controlling concentration levels of the alcohol molecules, to encode the alphabets with single spray representing bit 1 and no spray representing the bit 0," experiment leader and York U doctoral candidate Nariman Farsad, said.
This is the first time chemical signals have been used for technological human communication; but animals and insects have had the system figured out since before the first cell phone. Bees, for example, use pheromones to communicate the presence of danger to their peers. The Canadian lynx engages in similar practice when marking its territory.
The study provided a "cheap and easy" way for researchers to take the first step in testing molecular communication.
"Our system shows that reliable communication is possible and our work motivates future studies on more realistic modelling, analysis, and design of theoretical models and algorithms for molecular communication systems," Engineering Professor Weisi Guo at the University of Warwick, who started the research, said. "They can also be used to communicate on the nanoscale, for example in medicine where recent advances mean it's possible to embed sensors into the organs of the body or create miniature robots to carry out a specific task such as targeting drugs to cancer cells."
