Soon, smartphones to provide ultrasound imaging

September 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A woman is pregnant with two babies but doctors claim that they are not twins. Julia Grovenburg's ultrasound report has revealed that she will have two kids with husband Todd, but physicians are of the opinion that they were conceived on two separate occasions.

August 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A novel chemical imaging technique, called Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging (ATR-FTIR imaging), may one day help fight atherosclerosis, say researchers. Atherosclerosis is the disease underlying most heart attacks and strokes and it is characterised by lesions in the arteries, made of fats, collagen and cells.

July 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found out that moths can use ultrasound blasts to disrupt sonar from predatory bats, thus evading detection by the flying mammals. Bats emit high-pitched cries, then listen as the sound waves bounce off nearby objects-allowing the bats to find and eat tiny insects in the dark, among other things.

July 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers and scholars are using high-tech imaging to clear the layers of text hidden beneath words and letters written on levels of ancient papyrus, which may reveal fascinating insights into the writing and everyday life of early Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies. As part of the research, a team of national researchers and scholars examined dozens of papyri among the thousands of papyrological pieces in the University of Michigan (U-M) collection for the last four weeks.

July 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of scientists is developing novel underwater laser networking and imaging technologies that will be used onboard a group of small, co-operating robots, which will be able to rapidly identify and communicate potential threats in murky coastal waters. The new technology is being developed by scientists at the Ocean Visibility and Optics Laboratory at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University.

June 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - When a teenage girl discovers a lump in her breast, she should go for ultrasound examination instead of going for an immediate excisional biopsy, suggested a study. Breast cancer is rare in adolescents, and a vast majority of teenage breast lumps turn out to be benign masses that are related to hormones.

June 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers at the University of Illinois (U. of I.) has created the world's first acoustic "superlens," an innovation that could have practical implications for high-resolution ultrasound imaging, non-destructive structural testing of buildings and bridges, and novel underwater stealth technology.

June 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that humungous dinosaurs may have offset the consequences of being so large by quick healing of their bones. The study used high-resolution computed tomography (CT) imaging to guide sampling of bone lesions in the vertebrae of a hadrosaur ("duck-billed") dinosaur for histological and isotopic analysis.

May 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - An unfortunate fall, sudden twist or blow to the ankle often causes sprains leading to chronic ankle pain among many sufferers. But scientists have said that the underlying cause of the pain could be more than just a sprain.

April 28th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The painful insertion of a rigid instrument through the penis to scrape unwanted tissues lining the walnut-sized prostate gland, may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a gentler method developed by scientists. Urologist William Roberts and a team at the University of Michigan led by Ann Arbor are fine-tuning a technique to remove unwanted prostate tissue using focused pulses of ultrasound.

April 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, are developing a new technology, called histotripsy, to trim the interiors of aging prostates in the body. Traditionally, researchers treated prostate growths by inserting a rigid instrument through the penis and scraping away cells lining the walnut-sized gland.

April 22nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Marrying ultrasound technology with a smartphone, computer experts have created a compact, mobile, palm-sized medical imaging device. William D. Richard, associate professor and research associate David Zar at the computer science and engineering department of Washington University have made commercial ultrasound probes compatible with Microsoft Windows mobile-based smartphones, thanks to a $100,000 Microsoft grant.

April 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers, using CT imaging to study a priceless bust of Nefertiti, have uncovered a delicately carved face in the limestone inner core and gained new insights into methods used to create the ancient masterpiece and information pertinent to its conservation. "We acquired a lot of information on how the bust was manufactured more than 3,300 years ago by the royal sculptor," said the study's lead author Alexander Huppertz, M.D., director of the Imaging Science Institute in Berlin, Germany.

February 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists are designing a new kind of optical sensor that uses unmanned aerial vehicles to track suspected terrorists on foot or in vehicles. 'The Air Force has clearly recognised the change in the threat that we have,' said John Kerekes, associate professor in Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Chester F.

January 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A powerful new tool can image single molecules in a cell, with much greater clarity and speed, compared to existing methods. The new tool, dubbed liquid scanning transmission electron microscope or liquid STEM, uses a micro-fluidic device with electron transparent windows to enable the imaging of cells in liquid.