Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Mobile phone applications: Detect allergens before you eat
Ozcan’s group at UCLA has created another device called the iTube. This is an assay device that measures the concentrations of specific allergens in food. The cell phone serves as the readout interface to a very intricate biochemistry that is done with a small sample of the food. Typically, food allergen testing requires the services…
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Mobile phone applications: Fluorescent microscopy
Ozcan’s group at UCLA has been innovating with mobile phones for many years before the field had developed as much as it is today. This lab had come up with fluorescent microscope on a cell phone for detection of pathogens in 2008. They also developed LUCAS which was the Lenseless Ultrawide-field Cell monitoring array which…
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Mobile applications: Microscope for pictures of skin or ear.
Need: A device that can take a picture of skin or ear that is easy to use and operate. Cellscope intends to make add-on lenses and software that will enable patients to take pictures of their ear, transmit to the doctor for quick diagnosis. The device was conceived at Dan Fletcher’s Lab in Berkeley (http://fletchlab.berkeley.edu/)…
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Mobile applications: Eye test using mobile phone (NETRA)
Some things are simple just by using current technology and combining them in interesting ways. Problem statement: It is difficult to get an eye test in remote parts of the world where the doctors do not visit or cannot visit. Alternatively, an eye test requires complex instrumentation and is expensive that the Doctor even if…
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Gigapixel camera
David Brady of Duke University published a paper in Nature in 2012 (Brady DJ, Nature 486, 386) on 50 Gigapixel camera. The technology was interesting in that it used small camera’s that were coupled through a big lens. This may be a good strategy to make large cameras rather than depend on major lenses and…
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Optical Accelerometers
Accelerometers are microelectronic devices as discussed in this blog earlier that are commonly used in mobile phones, air bags and cameras. These are mechanical devices that measure piezoelectric, piezoresistive or capacitative based sensors that measure movement of a small weight. However, there is new technology available that uses lasers to measure movement. These are called…
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Personalized medicine for treatment of Cancer.
In treatment of cancer, there has been a significant thought in the value of personalized medicine. In general there is agreement that each cancer is slightly different and therapies need to be targeted specific for different patients. However, since each combination of therapy is unique, they have to be customized for the patients. This works…
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Primary cells for assays – human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC)
Biological assays are typically done on cell lines. However, many of the cell lines are so different from the cell systems that are encountered in real life, or in vivo that the results can often be flawed. To be perfectly physiological, scientists use primary human cells harvested from patients are cadavers. These are great systems…
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How does Single login work for many websites – OpenID
As we browse the web, we realize that each of the websites asks for authentication. So for example, if you are at Google Mail, it asks for entering the name and password combination. Browse to another site like Amazon and they ask for their own authentication. These name and password combinations are tedious to remember…
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Biology, Bessel beams and super resolution microscopy
Bessel beams are beam of laser light that are non-refracting and shaped liked the figure shown. The interesting characteristics about them are couple: 1.They do not diffract. Most light beams diffract and therefore do not make very good targets. 2.Their energy is spread over a larger area and therefore make great beams to work with…
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