While this product was designed to help poultry processing plant employees, it has potentially huge potential in a number of industries.

Herek Clack, an associate professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, was approached by Michigan Turkey Producers, a poultry processing plant. The plant workers need to be protected from bird flu, and the standard procedure is to wear masks. But these presented problems:

- The masks need to have tight seals, or they're not doing anything

- The masks are uncomfortable

- The masks can fog safety goggles and eyeglasses

- The masks make it harder to hear co-workers on a noisy production line

- Some of the employees speak English as a second language, and masks conceal facial cues, making communication more difficult

- The masks must be removed to eat or drink

Clack and his startup, Taza Aya, developed a technology that eliminates the need for masks. His invention is a hardhat with a brim that shoots a curtain of air downwards in front of the wearer's face. This prevents airborne particles from reaching the wearer's lungs, without the drawbacks of wearing a mask.

Air is sucked into a worn backpack unit, and disinfected with a nonthermal plasma before being blown out of the brim. The air curtain then prevents 99.8% of aerosols from reaching the wearer's lungs. ""It's virtually unheard of," Clack says, "our level of protection against airborne germs, especially when combined with the improved ergonomics it also provides."

While the backpack weighs ten pounds, I'd rather wear that than a mask. And I think this would prove incredibly useful in the construction industry and elsewhere. Imagine doing sheetrock demolition while wearing one of these. Or working in a cigar bar, or around sawdust, or on a road crew.

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Taza Aya is planning to roll this out as a product, called the Worker Wearable, next year.