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- Parent Category: Imaging
- Category: Optics
A long-time staple of science fiction is the tractor beam, a technology in which light is used to move massive objects – recall the tractor beam in the movie Star Wars that captured the Millennium Falcon and pulled it into the Death Star. While tractor beams of this sort remain science fiction, beams of light today are being used to mechanically manipulate atoms or tiny glass beads, with rapid progress being made to control increasingly larger objects. Those who see major roles for optomechanical systems in a host of future technologies will take heart in the latest results from a first-of-its-kind experiment.
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- Parent Category: Imaging
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The axon is a part of the neuron through which nerve impulses are transmitted, and at the end of which is located the synapse, which connects it to another neuron. In the event of a lesion, the axon is the component which must be regenerated in order to restore the connections between the different neurons and re-form the nerve.
Read more: New Imaging Technique: Toward Spinal Cord Regeneration?
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‘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
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- Parent Category: Imaging
- Category: 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.
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- Category: 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
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- Parent Category: Imaging
- Category: Medical
by Jennifer Marcus
Study of vesicular stomatitis virus leads to model of viral assembly process