News

Researchers across California are working to bring medical microscopes to our cellphones — and vastly improve field medicine.

You can use your cellphone to take pictures, get driving directions, and free imprisoned angry birds. And perhaps soon, analyze microscopic blood samples.

Three separate University of California research teams have each concocted a new technology that converts just about any handset with a decent camera into a mobile microscope. That’s a development that could have a huge impact on medicine in developing countries-allowing health care workers in shantytowns and rural villages far from a hospital to diagnose malaria, HIV, and other diseases on the spot.

Read more: Turning Cellphones Into Mobile Microscopes

Techniques

‘Cleverly designed' MRI sensors detect dopamine, offering a high-resolution look at what’s happening inside the brain.

by Anne Trafton

For neuroscientists, one of the best ways to study brain activity is with a scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which reveals blood flow in the brain.

However, although fMRI is a powerful tool for identifying brain regions that are active during a particular task, it offers only an indirect view of what’s happening. Measuring a more direct indicator of neural activity, such as concentrations of neurotransmitters (brain chemicals that carry messages between neurons) could be much more valuable.

Read more: New Technique Offers a More Detailed View of Brain Activity

Optics

by Simon Hadlington

UK researchers have discovered a new use for metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) - as potential lighting devices.

MOFs consist of inorganic nodes connected by organic linker molecules to form three-dimensional molecular cages. So far MOFs have attracted interest as a way to store gases such as hydrogen or carbon dioxide, or as novel catalytic materials.

Now, Anthony Cheetham from the University of Cambridge and colleagues have shown that MOFs can also act as a novel source of white light.

Read more: MOFs Make Light Work of it

Techniques

by Michael Patrick Rutter

Marrying high performance optics with microfluidics

Harvard engineers have successfully created a silicone rubber stick-on sheet containing dozens of miniature, powerful lenses, bring them one step closer to putting the capacity of a large laboratory into a micro-sized package.

Read more: Marrying high performance optics with microfluidics

Medical

by Jennifer Marcus

Study of vesicular stomatitis virus leads to model of viral assembly process