Olive oil, breast cancer, gigapixel scans

  • Olive oil biophenols – Raman reveals all – The first report of Raman spectroscopy being used to look at chemical structures in olive oil has been published. The study establishes Raman as a rapid, non-destructive and reliable analytical technique for identifying bioactive components, such as biophenols in dietary extracts and surpasses other analytical methods.
  • One nanoparticle for targeting, tracking and treating breast cancer – Nanoparticles coupled to a fluorescent dye can be used to target tumour-specific molecules in breast cancer providing a way to track the particles by NIR spectroscopy, to enhance magnetic resonance imaging and to deliver an anticancer payload only to diseased cells.
  • Zoom and enhance for medical imaging – Computer scientists at the University of Utah have developed software that can generate rapid previews of super-high resolution images for medical, astronomical, and other applications. Images containing billions to hundreds of billions of pixels drain computer resources rapidly but a new technique for analysing the data could allow gigapixel MRI scans and other images to be previewed and manipulated much more easily and quickly than is currently possible.