Nanoscale magnets in the form of iron-containing molecules might be used to improve the contrast between healthy and diseased tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)--as long as the concentration of nanomagnets is carefully managed--according to a new report* by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators.
In an advance that could lead to composite materials with virtually limitless performance capabilities, a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist has dispelled a 50-year-old theoretical notion that composite materials must be made only of "stable" individual materials to be stable overall.
Virginia Tech researchers in computer science and biology have used the university's supercomputer, System X, to create models and algorithms that make it possible to simulate the cell cycle -- the processes leading to cell division. They have demonstrated that the new mathematical models and numerical algorithms provide powerful tools for studying the complex processes going on inside living cells.System X. (Image courtesy of Virginia Tech)
Assistant Professor John Howell and his Quantum Optics team at the University of Rochester have discovered a way to manipulate a light field while retaining all of the information it carries. A considerable advance in imaging technology, the new method detects subtle changes in an image over time. Using photons and atomic vapor in what is known as imaging with slow light, the new technique precisely slows the image while retaining all of its properties.
System X. (Image courtesy of Virginia Tech)