Technology

Arrayit Corporation, a manufacturer of products and services for disease prevention, treatment and cure, announced today that it is developing a microarray-based diagnostic test to detect the H1N1 swine flu virus. The Arrayit test will allow researchers and clinicians to detect the presence of the virus in infected patients and livestock and to distinguish the threatening mutated strain from less harmful variants in humans and swine. Using its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, Arrayit plans to begin mass production of its test kits over the next several weeks. The H1N1 test kits will…

Quantum cryptography, a completely secure means of communication, is much closer to being used practically as researchers from Toshiba and Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have now developed high speed detectors capable of receiving information with much higher key rates, thereby able to receive more information faster. Published as part of IOP Publishing's New Journal of Physics' Focus Issue on 'Quantum Cryptography: Theory and Practice', the journal paper, 'Practical gigahertz quantum key distribution based on avalanche photodiodes', details how quantum communication can be made…

By 2020, NIH investigators over 68 will outnumber those under 38.  Source: NIH For various reasons, scientific and unscientific, much had been made of the hiatus bctwecn man atnd the: rest of the higher mammalia, and it is no wonder that issue was first joined on this part of the controversy. I have no wish to revive past and happily forgotten controversies, but I must state the simple fact that the distinctions in cerebral and other characters, which were so hotly affirmed to separate man from all other animals in 186o, have all been demonstrated to be non-existent, and that the…

Desire the world's coolest clock? Look no further than SB 2.0. Can you feel your heart beat faster? Are your hands sweaty? Relax, this is just a clock! The Math Clock ($32.99) makes you solve the problem at ‘hand’ (quite literally) to determine the time. By day 2 you should be ready for advanced calculus.

Filligent, a Hong Kong-based biotech company, is mobilizing stocks of its anti-infective BioMask to help combat the global spread of the deadly new Mexican strain of Influenza A.   The BioMask is the first medical face mask to kill the Influenza A virus within seconds of contact while retaining the breathability required by front-line workers and children, who are often the first to fall in a contagious episode. "Humanitarian organizations and governments are on the front line of containing infection, especially among children," says CEO Melissa Mowbray-d'Arbela. "We're allocating our…

Biomedical engineers have developed a new type of probe that allows them to visualize single ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules within live cells more easily than existing methods. The tool will help scientists learn more about how RNA operates within living cells. Techniques scientists currently use to image these transporters of genetic information within cells have several drawbacks, including the need for synthetic RNA or a large number of fluorescent molecules. The fluorescent probes developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology circumvent these issues. Details of the probe production…

DNA sequencing is the next frontier in biological research.As new sequencing technology becomes more efficient and affordable, it is increasingly available to small laboratories. Thus, sequencing data is being generated at a faster rate than ever before. However, the computing capacity needed to analyze such vast amounts of data still has some catching up to do. Large networks of interconnected computers, called computer clusters, are required to analyze these data. Expensive to establish and maintain, these computer clusters are generally available only to labs that can afford them. Enter…

MP3s, podcasts, etc. are not really our thing - most of our readers want data they can use and you can't forward a clip from an MP3 or copy and paste it conveniently ( "go to minute 18 for my refutation!" doesn't work all that well) but they can be handy so I have added in some code in case you want to use them. Just add in the mp3 as an inline link like you would do anything else and an arrow will appear next to the link in your article.   If people click the arrow, a small player opens up with controls for listening. is how it looks in your article and this is how it will be for the…

There's an interesting discussion over on the Wikipedia boards about the topic of "popular misconceptions" that has all sorts of interesting linguistic and informational aspects to it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_common_misconceptions#Request_...) .  The conundrum is that the article is intended to address "popular misconceptions" and at one point someone (identified only as "a user") steps in with a set of very cogent and thoughtful points that get looked at but never addressed.  They're particularly interesting because in sum they describe several of the great issues…

I had a nice essay going about information and sources, and a whack of the keyboard sent me off to a site I hadn't intended to visit and the post (all 400 words of it) off into bit-dust.  You'd think I would know better, having been a computer programmer ever since the early Cretaceous, but alas I fell victim to my own hubris.  I sort of feel cheated, as Coleridge did when his lovely dream of Xanadu was interrupted. Technology is a fickle mistress.