Wars, river pollution, retail… is there nothing drones can’t penetrate? Let’s get real, says Russ Swan.

Two bits of news collided in my inbox this week. One revealed that a well-known online retailer (the one named after a large South American river, which doesn’t need my help for publicity) has started making domestic deliveries in the UK by drone.

This has been done elsewhere, mostly in places that don’t have power and telephone lines criss-crossing all over the place, but which do have large suburban gardens to act as landing zones. I can’t see it being practical for most of us in the congested urban areas of our cities, but then I’m sceptical of selfdriving cars which are also being trialled. The cars themselves may be capable (may be) but our crumbling infrastructure, erased road markings and absent signage will, I expect, kibosh the whole project.

The other inbox collider, neither large nor hadronic, is an announcement from a US university (yes, apparently, they still have some of those despite the current administration’s efforts to endarken the enlightenment) of a new way of monitoring river quality.

Scientists at Iowa State have revealed their lab-on-a-drone system, which can fly to remote locations and not only collect water samples but also analyse them on the spot. This collect-and-sense, rather than merely collect-and-return, uses a novel membrane and commercially available electrodes to create what they say is a maintenancefree nitrate sensor to determine whether fertiliser is being used effectively.

A second sensor is soon to be added to monitor pesticide levels. There’s no mention yet of a UK application, which would most usefully incorporate a third sensor for our specific waterway needs. Did I say third? Sorry, I meant a turd sensor.

Scientists have revealed their lab-on-a-drone system, which can fly to remote locations and not only collect water samples but also analyse them on the spot

I’m old enough to remember when a drone was either a very dull person – a local councillor, for example, a type of bee, or a member of an upper-class gentleman’s club populated by the vapid scions of the undeserving rich in a PG Wodehouse novel. Now the damned things are everywhere, from the neighbourhood Peeping Tom to the front line of all of those lovely new wars that have kicked off in the last three or four years. Where will it end?

It can’t be long before some clever clogs invents the lab-on-a-chip-on-a-drone (technically, I just did, and I can’t wait for the royalty cheques). Assuming we can overcome the inherent challenges of frequent drone flights in and out of our hospitals and science parks – which we can’t, but let’s pretend – we can see a future where samples are whisked from homes, offices and GP surgeries to clinical and research labs and arrive with at least some analyses already completed. Maybe a robopharmacist could then automatically dispense the necessary meds, to be delivered on a return flight by the same drone.

I know, there’s all kinds of reasons why that could never work, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of blue sky thinking.

Anyway, a skyborne delivery service might be just the thing for your lab, if you find yourself running low on supplies. Just one word of warning: the delivery drone doesn’t actually land your parcel but ejects it from its cargo bay at a height of 3.6m. That’s about the same as being thrown out of a first floor window, so might not be ideal for that consignment of laboratory glassware.