Technology

A new hand-held device uses lasers and sound waves to accurately measure how deep a melanoma tumor extends into the skin, providing valuable information for treatment, diagnosis or prognosis.  Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer type in the United States, and incidence rates are rising faster than those of any other cancer. It's also the deadliest form of skin cancer, causing more than 75 percent of skin-cancer deaths. The thicker the melanoma tumor, the more likely it will spread and the deadlier it becomes, says dermatologist Lynn Cornelius of Washington University in St. Louis ,…

Science 2.0, the future of science, has teamed up with Ora.TV, the future of television, for a joint marketing agreement. Ora.TV is the new network spearheaded by the legendary Larry King. They have a lot of intriguing programming - Larry King, of course, and then also Jesse Ventura and, if you like edgy tech-driven shows, Dweebcast, but also a lot more. They even have a show where William Shatner drinks wine from a bag and talks with people. That great whooshing sound you just heard nationwide was 100 percent of the science world rushing to Los Angeles to get hammered and talk with Captain…

I went to the Indiana State Fair last Friday. Visited lots of exhibits and ate lots of great food. I also wanted to shoot some test POV (point of view) video with the i-KAM XTREME video eyewear. The i-KAM is a lower cost alternative to wearable video cameras. The video is actually quite good. Here are some specifications from the website: Power Duration: 2.5-3 hours Memory: Built in 4 GB, Max 8 GB, Supports Max 8 GB Micro SD card Resolution: 736 x 480 Video Format: AVI Audio: Mono Camera: 3 megapixel pinhole CMOS camera Recording Speed: 25 fps Even though the audio is mono, it is still…

Researchers have developed a powerful new tool to identify genetic changes in disease-causing bacteria that are responsible for antibiotic resistance. The team looked at the genome of Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterial species that causes 1.6 million deaths worldwide each year. In the most detailed research of its kind, scientists used a genome-wide association study (GWAS) to locate single-letter changes in the DNA code of the bacterium, which enable it to evade antibiotic treatment. While GWAS has been used for a decade to identify gene function in humans, it was thought to be difficult…

For years, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have been working on origami robots — reconfigurable machines that can fold themselves into arbitrary shapes. In Science, they report their latest milestone, which is a robot made almost entirely from parts produced by a laser cutter that folds itself up and crawls away as soon as batteries are attached to it.  The robot is built from five layers of materials, all cut according to digital specifications by a laser cutter. The middle layer is copper, etched into an intricate network of electrical leads. It's sandwiched between two…

A nasal brush test can rapidly and accurately diagnose Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), an incurable and ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disorder. Up to now, a definitive CJD diagnosis requires testing brain tissue obtained after death or by biopsy in living patients but a new paper in the New England Journal of Medicine shows it can be done through the nose.  CJD is a prion disease. These diseases originate when, for reasons not fully understood, normally harmless prion protein molecules become abnormal and gather in clusters. Prion diseases affect animals and people. Human prion…

The 21st century will be the century of the 'smart home', where your home and your portable technology all interact seamlessly with one another. In the 21st century, smart homes won't be just for Bill and Melinda Gates, who had to spend $100 million to enjoy advanced technology, they will be for people across a variety of incomes, just like traditional homes have been until now. Rather than have all of these different devices and the headache of getting them to work together, a cross-platform tool will work with whatever you are accessing, such as a panel or a smartphone or a TV.…

Wikipedia is a free, online, user-generated database of articles on topics and people. Because of its popularity, it has become the default first link in Google search, which means it is frequently read and cited, making it even more authoritative in Google search. There are numerous problems with the veracity of content, deliberate vandalism and incomplete entries - the Science 2.0 entry, for example, has been repeatedly hijacked and reverted by one user and the first reference is from a Wired article written in 2012 even though Science 2.0 came into existence in 2006. There are no…

In order to keep outwanted immigrants, the United States Department of Agriculture and California Department of Food and Agriculture joined efforts and built an online tool for identification - of alien and potentially invasive species from all over the world. Scales are small insects that feed by sucking plant juices. They can attack nearly any plant and cause serious damage to many agricultural and ornamental plants. While native scales have natural enemies that generally keep their populations in check, invasive species often do not, and for this reason many commercially…

Why are scientists at the apex of their careers least likely to adopt new technology? The quick answer is obvious, they got to where they are doing things their way and there is no reason to fix something unbroken. Younger scientists don't have much choice because they don't write the checks, the use the tools the principal investigator has. It's scientists in the middle most likely to adopt new tools, or adopt the tools of collaborators and even competitors. What it means for Thermo Fisher Scientific is that high-status scientists may not be the most effective use of their marketing budget.…