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Up to 50% of women skip potentially life-saving mammograms often because the procedure can cause extreme discomfort and pain. Now researchers have developed a painless, light-based, non-radioactive, 15-second procedure that could revolutionize breast cancer screening and save lives.

Although early detection of breast cancer can significantly increase survival, the radioactive X-ray that requires painful squeezing of the breast to get a good picture is an event that women do not look forward to. Now Caltech researcher Lihong Wang, Ph.D., Bren Professor of Medical and Electrical Engineering, and his colleagues are using their expertise in imaging tissues with light and sound to address this problem. Their development of a revolutionary breast scanning system known as photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is reported in the June issue of Nature Communications.2

“The technique developed by Wang and his colleagues combines light and sound to peer noninvasively into tissues without the radioactivity of an X-ray,” explained Behrouz Shabestari, Ph.D., director of the Program in Optical Imaging at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, which funded the study. “PACT is also superior to MRI, which is expensive and sometimes requires the injection of contrast agents, commonly gadolinium. Gadolinium cannot be used in individuals with kidney disease and has recently been shown to accumulate in the bones and brain with unknown long-term effects.”

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Circa 2012

Blood tests convey vital medical information, but the sight of a needle often causes anxiety and results take time. A new device developed by a team of researchers in Israel, however, can reveal much the same information as traditional blood test in real-time, simply by shining a light through the skin. This optical instrument, no bigger than a breadbox, is able to provide high-resolution images of blood coursing through our veins without the need for harsh and short-lived fluorescent dyes.

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So yes, Microsoft may (at long last) be redesigning Windows 10 updates in a more responsible manner. But allowing users to block dangerous updates is just one part of the solution. Not sending dangerous updates to users computers every few months seems equally important to me.

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Origami-based structures have been used to create deployable solar arrays for space, adaptable acoustic systems for symphony halls and even crash protection systems for flying drones.

Now researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a new type of that can morph from one pattern into a different one, or even a hybrid of two patterns, instantly altering many of its structural characteristics.

The research, which was supported by the National Science Foundation and is to be published April 19 in the journal Physical Review Letters, could unlock new types of origami-based structures or metamaterials that leverage the characteristics of two types of origami.

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On April 25, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch cargo to the space station and two organs-on-a-chip experiments designed by University of Pennsylvania scientists. They want to understand why so many astronauts get infections while in space. NASA has reported that 15 of the 29 Apollo astronauts had bacterial or viral infections. Between 1989 and 1999, more than 26 space shuttle astronauts had infections.

Huh and his team have created two separate experiments for this first launch. The first essentially mimics an infection inside a human airway, to see what happens to the bacteria, and the surrounding cells, in orbit. Huh’s BIOLines lab created the actual chips.

A lung chip is made of a polymer, and a permeable membrane is the platform for the human cells. For the lung-on-a-chip, one side of the membrane is coated with lung cells, to process the air, and capillary cells on the other, to provide the blood flow. The membrane is stretched and released to provide the bellows-like effect of real lungs.

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When the universe formed during the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, the chemical reactions of the aftermath formed the first molecules. Those first molecules were crucial in helping form everything we know, but they’re also absent.

And although HeH+, the helium hydride ion, has been proposed for years as that first molecule, scientists couldn’t find any evidence of its existence in space — until now. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

After the Big Bang, HeH+ formed in a molecular bond when helium atoms and protons combined. Later, these would break apart into hydrogen molecules and helium atoms. Both elements are the two most abundant throughout the universe, with hydrogen first and helium second.

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Circa 2016

Just lopped off your ring finger slicing carrots (some time in the future)? No problem. Just speed-read this article while you’re waiting for the dronebulance. …

“Epimorphic regeneration” — growing digits, maybe even limbs, with full 3D structure and functionality — may one day be possible. So say scientists at Tulane University, the University of Washington, and the University of Pittsburgh, writing in a review article just published in Tissue Engineering, Part B, Reviews (open access until March 8).

The process of amphibian epimorphic regeneration may offer hints for humans. After amputation, the wound heals to form an epidermal layer, the underlying tissues undergo matrix remodeling, and cells in the region secrete soluble factors. A heterogeneous cell mass, or blastema, forms from the proliferation and migration of cells from the adjacent tissues. The blastema then gives rise to the various new tissues that are spatially patterned to reconstruct the original limb structure. (credit: Lina M. Quijano et al./Tissue Engineering Part B)
Continue reading “Could humans ever regenerate limbs?” | >

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Now, almost 100 years later, the Department of Defence, through its Next Generation Technology Fund, has selected 11 projects that exploit the extraordinary properties of quantum mechanics to deliver improved security for Australians. The Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) at the University of Adelaide is involved in four of these ambitious projects.

IPAS will work closely with the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group on four ambitious quantum technology projects. Three of the four projects focus on quantum detection.

One project explores whether ‘quantum’ radar can be used to detect stealth aircraft.

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