Okay, I was fiddling around in iPhoto adjusting some photos I took of Sam and I today at various locations, and was tweaking a self-portrait I took when I noticed that the camera picked up more spots than are visible to the eye. Cameras pick up a slightly wider range of frequencies than the eye, so this is not surprising - but it led me to wonder (I who got skin cancer at 14) if photography could be used to pick up signs of precancer sooner than human inspection, or as an aid to human inspection (the current method). I assume that these spots were picked up on the ultraviolet end of the spectrum (the other end, infrared would look a bit blurrier I think) so a beam of ultraviolet light could be beamed from a handheld wand (if used along with human inspection) or a full body scanner, photographing all the patient's skin to be analyzed by computer either on the fly or later, flagging suspect areas. I don't know, do you think this would be useful? I'm not sure how many people skin cancer kills every year, but this would be more reassuring to me (if effective), than having to crane my neck around in the mirror to inspect the spots on my back.