DHAKA: The lengthy wait for a cancer diagnosis can be one of the most stressful periods of the illness.

But, what will it be if you can diagnose yourself, without the need for a doctor, in an instant, just with a smartphone camera?

That's what researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia are hoping to make possible, with the mantis shrimp acting as the team's unlikely inspiration, reports gizmodo.com on Monday.

It says that the way that mantis shrimp see the world is completely different to humans.

Their compound eyes make them incredibly good at seeing polarized light — which reflects in a different, identifiable way off cancerous cells compared to healthy tissue.

Whereas humans use contrasts in colors and hues to identify between objects in the world, creatures like the mantis shrimp hunt their prey using this polarized light technique.

While non-invasive cancer-spotting devices using polarized light already exist, they are big and expensive systems.

The University of Queensland researchers have already begun work on far smaller, cheaper alternatives, which with further development could easily be stuck into a smartphone. And they work — early prototypes have been able to spot cancerous cells in the brains of mice, visualizing what would otherwise be invisible to the naked human eye.

If successfully developed, the systems could significantly reduce hospital waiting times, and ease the worries of those twiddling their thumbs waiting for test results.

However, with Apple and the rest of the mobile industry increasingly looking at the healthcare sector as the next significant mobile boom area, the researchers will likely have plenty of open ears ready to see the system come to fruition.

BDST: 1842 HRS, SEP 29, 2014