A team of MIT researchers have developed nanoparticle sensors that could eventually be used to monitor tumors or other diseases, as well as act as a tool to diagnose illnesses. These nanoparticles are made of polymer chains that can bind to the sensors a doctor needs. For instance, in the scientists’ tests, they used an MRI contrast agent called nitroxide along with Cy5.5, which glows when it encounters vitamin C, as sensors. These individual strands then merge to form the structure you see above, which the researchers call “branched bottlebrush polymer.” As you can guess, the bottlebrush polymer the team developed for the study can perform MRI and detect vitamin C, as detailed in their paper recently published in Nature . Since nitroxide grabs electrons from the vitamin and remains inactive in its presence, the scientists don’t get confused by the two different signals. At the moment, the researchers are still working to refine the nanotechnology, developing another version that can carry three different drugs along with the vitamin C detector. As they can mix and match the sensors, though, they believe that in the future, the polymers could be used to evaluate oxygen radicals in a tumor to determine how aggressive it is. Also, the microscopic bottlebrushes could be used to collect real-time biochemical info on affected and healthy tissues, serving as a quick and accurate diagnostic tool. Filed under: Science Comments Source: Nature , MIT
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Nanotech has a future in monitoring tumors and diagnosing illness
If you want to sell or get rid of your computer, it’s important to make sure there isn’t any leftover data that someone could get to. When it comes to NTFS-formatted hard drives, simply deleting your files isn’t enough—even if you empty your recycle bin—but there are still a few things you can do. Read more… 
New submitter Tucano writes The overtone singer Anna-Maria Hefele can sing two notes at the same time. In her latest video, spectrograms and frequency filters are used to explain how she can produce two melody lines at the same time, and how she uses her mouth to filter the frequencies of her voice. When the voice produces a sound, many harmonics (or overtones) sound at the same time, and we normally hear this as a single tone. In overtone singing, the mouth filters out all harmonics but one, and the one that remains is amplified to become louder. This is then perceived as a separate tone, next to the fundamental. In her video, Anna-Maria shows techniques that become increasingly advanced. She shows the overtone scale (steady fundamental, moving overtone), the undertone scale (steady overtone, moving fundamental), parallel movement and opposing movement of overtone and fundamental, and even complex compositions with two separate melody lines. Read more of this story at Slashdot.