Come on med schools, pick up the slack

Until recently, most medical schools provided little information on financial factors, like how the insurance system works and how treatment costs affect patients’ behavior.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/health/04cost.html

Technology's smallest microscope, medicine's biggest ally

Engineer invents world's smallest, lightest telemedicine microscope

-Aydogan Ozcan, whose invention of a novel lensless imaging technology for use in telemedicine could radically transform global health care, has now taken his work a step further -- or tinier: The UCLA engineer has created a miniature microscope, the world's smallest and lightest for telemedicine applications.

-Telemedicine involves performing medical tests in the field and requires portable tools in a resource-limited environment and integration into a medical network e.g. hospital or central lab.

-This lensless microscope solves both these problems: (a) it is small & lightweight, and (b) simple to operate - anyone (not necessarily a doctor) can use it, and then upload the digital image via smart phone/computer to be analyzed by a medical professional.

-Potential to monitor diseases and water quality in 3rd world countries with limited health care facilities, and at a realistic cost.
http://www.physorg.com/news191170981.html

Quantum mechanics drives photosynthesis - you lost me at quantum

-Everyone has heard of photosynthesis - a process used by green plants to convert sunlight into electrochemical energy at an efficiency of nearly 100%.
-Although the overall pathway and major players are known for this process, the nitty-gritty details have eluded scientists, until now.
-Physical chemists at UC Berkeley observed 'entanglement' (a distinctive property of quantum mechanical systems) in the light harvesting complex in plants.
-Importance: huge step towards developing (a) artificial photosynthesis systems as renewable, non-polluting electrical energy sources and (b) quantum-based technologies e.g. quantum computers which are potentially thousands of times faster than conventional computers.

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/05/10/untangling-quantum-entanglement/

It's about time windmills grew sea-legs

Regulators Approve First Offshore Wind Farm in U.S.

After nine years of review, the approval of the 130-turbine farm off the coast of Cape Cod gives a significant boost to the nascent offshore wind industry n the U.S.

Nanofoods - coming soon to a grocery store near you

Dangerous tampering of the fruits of nature or the solution to ending world hunger? My-oh-my, what a future debate this is going to be.

http://food.change.org/blog/view/are_nanofoods_sustainable

The future of healthcare, patient-patient interaction

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/25276/

Low battery? Just plug it in...to yourself

MEMS device generates power from body heat -- In an attempt to develop a power source that is compact, environmentally friendly, and has an unlimited lifetime, a team of researchers from Singapore has fabricated an energy harvesting device that generates electricity from body heat or any environment where there is a temperature gradient. Their device, called a thermoelectric power generator, attaches to the body and generates a power output of a few microwatts, which could be useful for powering implanted medical devices and wireless sensors.

How to make a cell for dummies

Peering Over the Fortress That Is the Mighty Cell

The scientists who created a synthetic variant are in debt to nature, time and billions of years of evolution.

Just another day in the life of a carbon nanotube

Carbon Nanotubes Boost Cancer-Fighting Cells

-One defensive strategy in the human immune system utilizes T cells, which are able to detect bad stuff in the body, replicate in lymph nodes, and then induce a strong immune response.
-Tumor cells are able to survive because they prevent tumor-specific T cells from replicating and therefore suppress any immune response.
-A technique called 'Adoptive Immunotherapy' is a treatment option, where patient's blood is drawn and T cells are stimulated and replicated in the lab before being transferred back into the patient.
-A major drawback right now is that it can take several weeks until sufficient T cells are produced.

-Yale scientists have found that carbon nanotubes mimic lymph nodes in the lab and reduce the time to produce enough tumor-fighting T cells by 1/3.
-All that is needed now is find an efficient way of removing the carbon nanotubes before re-injecting the T cells into the patient.