Patent ID: 7704731

Claim:
A toxicity test system comprising: an aqueous suspension of dinoflagellates; a test chamber capable of containing said aqueous suspension of dinoflagellates and a test sample; an optical signal generator capable of emitting an excitation signal, said excitation signal capable of exciting said dinoflagellates to emit a fluorescence signal if said dinoflagellates are alive; a first optical transducer capable of producing a first data signal in response to detecting said fluorescence signal; a stimulator capable of generating a pressure pulse, wherein said pressure pulse is capable of stimulating said dinoflagellates to emit a bioluminescence signal if said dinoflagellates are alive; a second optical transducer capable of producing a second data signal in response to detecting said bioluminescence signal; and an analyzer disposed to compare said first data signal and said second data signal to a control data to generate an output representing the toxicity of said test sample.