How GPUs Are Helping Pinpoint Toxins in Everyday Household Items

Breakfast cereal. Baby shampoo. Cough syrup. Dishwasher detergent.

This grocery list is also a list of products that can make you sick. Very sick, in fact, if they aren’t thoroughly tested before hitting supermarket shelves.

Some contain a variety of chemical compounds people are exposed to every day, which could be toxic. Toxins come from just about anywhere—environmental pollution, ingredients in cosmetics or cleaning products, medicines, food additives and pesticides, to name just a few sources.

Before a box is picked off a shelf and dropped into a shopping cart, months of testing went into the contents listed on the label. With new products reaching the market every day, drug makers, food manufacturers and retailers no longer rely on laborious tests to assess data on thousands of chemicals. They rely on researchers using GPUs to help determine friend from foe.