Last Friday's Science Friday on NPR featured a really exciting segment on a "microscope on a chip," an ingenious, $10 method for building a microscope using a digital camera controller. The 17-minute segment runs through a number of potential applications for this, from cellphone microscopes that could autonomously identify hazardous bacteria in water samples (for cameraphones, the cost of implementing microscope functionality is about $1), to implanting cancer-detecting scopes in high-risk patients, to putting hundreds of microscopes on a single chip for massively parallel sampling and testing.
Researchers have developed a micro-microscope. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at Caltech describe the creation of an on-chip, lens-free microscope that they say could be built for about ten dollars. The device uses a screen of tiny holes mounted above a CCD sensor to image liquids flowing through microscopic channels in the chip. Such a microscope chip could provide high-resolution microscopic images in field instruments for tasks such as blood screening and water testing. We'll talk with one of the inventors of the device about its potential uses
Micro Microscope (broadcast Friday, August 1st, 2008)
Photographer Eric Brummel created this magnificent time-lapse video of the Milky Way in which the sky is stabilized so you can experience the Earth’s rotation. He captured the footage at Font’s Point, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California. From Universe Today: Eric created this time-lapse by using a star-tracker with his camera. A star-tracker rotates the […]
In the journal Nature, University of Melbourne researcher Michele Acuto argues that what happens in our cities after dark has a tremendous impact on energy, sustainability, waste, and inequality “yet scholarship and policy often neglect these dark hours.” According to Acuto, we need a coordinated and cross-disciplinary “science of the night” to gather data and […]
Every year, the nonprofit Neural Correlate Society, an organization “that promotes scientific research into the neural correlates of perception and cognition,” holds a competition for the Best Illusion of the Year. This year’s winner is the above “Dual Axis Illusion” created by Frank Force (USA). “This spinning shape appears to defy logic by rotating around […]
Wine is great, but wine poured with an aerator is even better. It’s true that a jolt of oxygen does wonders for the flavor of a wine just before it’s poured. This Electric Wine Aerator & Dispenser makes sure that every pour gets its fair share of air, delivering oxygen over a wide surface area. […]
How many times a day do you wipe your glasses clean? If you actually care about your specs, you’re using a microfiber cloth and not your shirt. In which case, good for you. But even so, you’re just removing the surface dust on those lenses – not the grime and oil that accumulates on a […]
When you’re doing long-term workouts, you know the recovery can be just as important as the exercise itself. And when the intensity gets to a certain level, a simple stretch won’t cut it. From there, you’ve got two options. Either head to the spa for a professional massage, or take matters into your own hands […]
