Results tagged “lasers” from 60 Second Science

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Breathalyzers are no longer just good for getting a DUI citation. Now when a police officer suspends your driver’s license he can throw in, “By the way, not only is your blood alcohol level over the legal limit, but according to my breathalyzer—you have an inoperable malignant brain tumor.” Indeed, scientists have found that by simply blasting a person's breath with laser light, you can detect specific molecules that will tell you whether or not they have specific diseases like diabetes or cancer.

Actually, this StarTrekish advancement is not intended to diagnose drunkenness (although it can do that too), but rather is meant to make professional medical diagnostics quicker, less expensive, less painful and potentially even more accurate that current methods. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado at Boulder say the advancement would allow doctors to simultaneously screen for a variety of conditions with a mere exhale. Known as optical frequency comb spectroscopy, the technology earned it’s creators a Nobel Prize in physics, and is powerful enough to sort through all the molecules in human breath while also being sensitive enough to distinguish rare molecules that can serve as biomarkers for specific diseases.

Continue reading 'Futuristic "Breathalyzer" Laser Created that Can Assess Personal Health with a Mere Exhale' >

What’s cooler than forcing droves of disenfranchised teenagers armed with lasers to battle tens of thousands of feral, murderous monkeys terrorizing the countryside?

The answer: absolutely nothing. India, you officially rule.

After losing much of their natural forest habitat, rhesus macaque monkeys have spread out to farms and cities over much of India’s northern territory, leading to one death and about 25 attacks. Indian authorities, ever the pragmatists, have decided to draft a small army of unemployed, minimally trained youths (don't forget about the lasers) for an epic clash to either death or castration, depending on who wins. I mean, those kids got nothing better to do, am I right?

Conservationalists have the gall to denounce all this as “unscientific.” One even goes so far to say, and not without a whiff of pomposity methinks: "It is a ridiculous idea and what is worse, it will do nothing to contain the problem and probably make it worse.”

Worse, or awesomer? Let’s get it on.

My personal theory was right all along -- lasers really are the answer to everything. Physicist Kong-Thon Tsen of Arizona State University and his son, Shaw-Wei Tsen, a pathology student at Johns Hopkins, singlehandedly redefined the idea of Take-Your-Son-to-Work Day by developing a superfast pulsing laser that can destroy viruses without harming healthy cells. In the future, this totally rad ultrashort-pulse (USP) laser could possibly be used to treat incurable viruses like HIV.

In the latest research, Tsen and his son demonstrated that their laser technique could shatter the protein shell, or capsid, of the tobacco mosaic virus, leaving behind only a harmless mucus-like mash of molecules.

The laser shattered the capsid at low energy: 40 times lower, in fact, than the energy level that harmed human T-cells. Other types of radiation, like ultraviolet light, kill microbes on produce, but would damage human cells.

Continue reading 'Superfast lasers could fix incurable viruses, everything else' >