MagiQ Technologies plans to offer a cryptogaphy system using quantum key distribution in 2003.
Keys to the code are transmitted as a stream of photons, sent over a fiber optic cable. Security is based on quantum physics: observing the transmission would alter the photons, rendering their information useless to any eavesdroppers.
A new Web service called Fotowoosh promises to convert photos into 3-D and serve as “a 3-D Flickr.”
The technology wsa developed by computer-vision researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
A new imaging technology under investigation at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University may help researchers pinpoint subtle aberrations in cell nuclear structure, the molecular biosignature of cancer, thus significantly improving diagnostic accuracy and prognosis by providing early detection of breast cancer, a leading worldwide health concern.
The team has examined normal, benign and malignant cells, using the Cell-CT from VisionGate, Inc., Phoenix, AZ,… read more
Dr. Maria Siemionow of the Cleveland Clinic is planning to undertake what may be the most shocking medical procedure to occur in decades: a face transplant.
Her team has managed to induce long-term tolerance to hind-leg transplants with a drug regimen lasting only seven days. If similar results can be achieved in humans (many previous efforts along these lines have failed), the advance will alter the calculus behind transplantations,… read more
Researchers at Penn State and the Sigma-Aldrich company have found a way to control geometry and stability in making a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of molecules on a surface by making SAMs out of different carboranethiol isomers, which are cage-like molecules.
These SAMs can selectively capture biomolecules from complex mixtures, for example.
University of Rochester optics professor Jannick Rolland has developed an optical technology that provides unprecedented images under the skin’s surface.
The aim of the technology is to detect and examine skin lesions to determine whether they are benign or cancerous without having to cut the suspected tumor out of the skin and analyze it in the lab. Instead, the tip of a roughly one-foot-long cylindrical probe is placed in… read more
Researchers are beginning to sequence “metagenomes,” the DNA of entire microbial ecosystems.
Some scientists think can will be used to find new enzymes, monitor the health of environments, predict environmental impacts, and find patterns in the bacterial population in humans that will predict when someone is about to get sick.
A new system devised by MIT researchers could provide a novel method for moving tiny objects inside a microchip, for biomedical screening or the detection of trace elements for pollution monitoring or security screening, or might someday be developed for use in medical diagnostics, by allowing controlled delivery of particles inside the body to specifically targeted locations.
The researchers devised a system that uses tiny beads made… read more
Lyric Semiconductor has unveiled a “probability processor” computer chip that performs calculations using probabilities, instead of binary logic. It could accelerate everything from online banking systems to the flash memory in smart phones and other gadgets.
Can the new Kindle, being introduced Monday, save the publishing business?
A new method for studying the electrical charges of large biological molecules may enable researchers to make a leap from modeling molecules of 50,000 atoms to those of more than a million atoms. This may make it possible to develop more effective anti-cancer drugs.
View a QuickTime movie of a “fly-through” of a microtubule
The technique, developed by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers… read more
Duke University engineers have developed a novel method for producing clean hydrogen, which could prove essential to weaning society off of fossil fuels and their environmental implications.
While hydrogen is ubiquitous in the environment, producing and collecting molecular hydrogen for transportation and industrial uses is expensive and complicated. Just as importantly, a byproduct of most current methods of producing hydrogen is carbon monoxide, which is… read more
Robot soldiers will think, see and react increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.
Robots in battle, as envisioned by their builders, may look and move like humans or hummingbirds, tractors or tanks, cockroaches or crickets. With the development of nanotechnology,… read more
Just-launched Nicira hopes to make the Internet more powerful and more secure than ever before.
Its Network Virtualization Platform software, aimed at the operators of data centers like Rackspace, blocks the programs running on the servers from interacting with the surrounding network hardware, simulating physical routers and switches.
Administrators can swiftly reprogram the virtual network to offer each application a private connection to the rest of the Internet. That… read more
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues have proposed a new “network-extracted ontology” (NeXO) method that creates a computational model of the cell from large networks of gene and protein interactions, discovering how genes and proteins connect to form higher-level cellular machinery.
“Our method creates [an] ontology, or a specification of all the major players in the cell and… read more