Imaging tech

Engineers test sign language on cell phones

We all know what it's like to send a text message or e-mail whose tone is completely misinterpreted. A series of additional messages to better explain ourselves ensues and the efficiency of the original message is long gone.

That's one reason engineers at the University of Washington are testing a tool called MobileASL that uses motion detection to identify American Sign Language and transmit images over U.S. cell networks. Sometimes, words alone just don't cut it.

"Sometimes with texting, people will be confused about what it really means," says Tong Song, a Chinese national who is studying at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf in Washington, D.C., and participating in UW's summer pilot test. "With the MobileASL, phone people can see each other eye to eye, face to face, and really have better understanding."

Eve Riskin, a UW professor of electrical engineering, says the MobileASL team's study of 11 students is the first to examine how deaf and hearing-impaired people in the U.S. use mobile video phones. The researchers plan to launch a larger field study this winter.

The engineers are now working to optimize compressed video signals for sign language, increasing the quality of the images around the face and hands to reduce the data rate to 30 kilobytes per second. To minimize the amount of battery power, the phones employ motion sensors to determine whether sign language is being used.… Read more

Scientists to develop nanochip to detect oral cancer

In early 2010, a research project found a simple swipe of a diagnostic biochip to be 93 percent "specific" in detecting which of 52 patients being studied had malignant oral cancer lesions.

Now, the international research team announces that it has been awarded $2 million from the National Institutes of Health to develop the test, which involves removing cells with a brush, placing them on a chip, and inserting that chip much like a credit card into an analyzer, with results ready in 8 to 10 minutes.

Such a fast turnaround should result in shorter waiting times, fewer … Read more

In Foldit, gamers take on protein challenges

Since computer scientists and biochemists at the University of Washington launched a project in 2008 that taps into the brainpower of computer gamers to fold proteins, almost 60,000 people around the world have taken on the challenge.

In the process, Foldit players have been able to best computers on problems that require radical moves, risks, and long-term vision, according to results being published on Thursday, in the journal Nature.

"The really fundamental question in most scientists' minds was, 'What can it produce, in terms of results? Is there any evidence that it's doing something useful?'" says … Read more

Using atomic-force microscopy to find new meds

Scientists at the University of Aberdeen in the U.K. and IBM Research in Zurich say they are the first to use atomic-force microscopy to "see" the unknown molecular structure of a marine compound taken from the deepest place on Earth, a result that could speed up the development of new medicines.

In doing so, researchers discovered that the pressure-tolerant bacterium sampled from the deepest place on the planet--the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, 35,814 feet below sea level--contains the molecular structure cephalandole A, which was originally isolated from a Taiwanese orchid.

The group's findings appear online August 1 … Read more

Off-the-shelf digital camera sees cancer in real time

Using a $400 Olympus E-330 digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and University of Texas cancer researchers report in PLoS ONE this week that they are able to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells with only a little tweaking.

"Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms for diagnostic imaging," says lead author and Rice professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum in the school's news release. "Based on portability, performance, and cost, you could make a case for using them both to lower health care costs in developed countries and to provide services that simply aren't available in resource-poor … Read more

'Dose painting': Customizing radiation treatment

A molecular-imaging technique using positron emission tomography (PET) sheds enough light on the biological processes of tumors that researchers hope to one day treat cancers with very targeted, high doses of radiation therapy customized for each individual tumor, according to research presented last week.

The study was presented at the Society of Nuclear Medicine's 57th Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Researchers used PET, X-ray computed tomography, and Philips-developed pharmacokinetic-modeling software to determine a tumor's anatomy and physiology and develop a high-dose intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plan tailored for that particular tumor. Customizing radiation in … Read more

Human Atlas HD app now on iPad

Building on the iPhone app it released last August, Blausen Medical, developer of the world's largest library of 3D medical animations, has just released an iPad version of its Human Atlas HD app.

Like its smaller predecessor, the Blausen Human Atlas iPad app boasts narrated, 3D video animations of 150 medication conditions and treatments, as well as 360-degree, rotatable 3D illustrations of the human figure's full-body systems (skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, circulatory, etc).

Blausen reports that the app has been developed for a middle-school reading level and includes a searchable glossary of more than 1,500 terms that … Read more

Next-gen blood glucose monitor: High-tech tattoos

Chemical engineers at MIT are designing carbon nanotubes that can be injected beneath the skin to reveal continuous blood glucose levels in real time. If it works, people with Type I diabetes may not have to prick their fingers multiple times a day to monitor their glucose levels.

Dubbed a "tattoo" that's designed to detect glucose, the nanotubes are wrapped in a polymer that is sensitive to glucose concentrations. A wearable device roughly the size of a wristwatch shines infrared light through the skin and onto the nanotubes, which fluoresce when in contact with glucose.

So it's really a tattoo in hiding. And at this point the sensor is estimated to have a shelf (or is it skin?) life of roughly six months.

But the team, which plans to start testing on animals soon, says that if the readings are accurate enough to pass the Clarke Error Grid analysis for glucose sensor accuracy, the system could revolutionize continuous glucose monitoring.

"The most problematic consequences of diabetes result from relatively short excursions of a person's blood sugar outside of the normal physiological range, following meals, for example," said Michael Strano, a professor at MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering. "If we can detect and prevent these excursions, we can go a long way toward reducing the devastating impact of this disease."… Read more

3D imaging could help improve hearing aids

If you're one of the 17 percent of American adults who reportedly suffer from some type of hearing loss, listen up: hearing aids--and earphones--may be about to enter a new generation of superior fit and functionality, thanks to molds based on a 3D imaging technique instead of plaster.

Time was, getting fitted for a hearing aid took an hour in a chair with an audiologist, who would fill a patient's ear canals with a silicone substance that hardened into a mold from which the aid would be constructed. The molds are only so detailed, which means the fits … Read more

Silicon 'nose' turns cell phones into toxin detectors

The developers of a tiny silicon chip that can be embedded in cell phones say it could detect and then map the location and extent of gas leaks and toxins in the air.

"Cell phones are everywhere people are," says Michael Sailor, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California at San Diego, who heads the research effort. "This technology could map a chemical accident as it unfolds."

Sailor's team at UCSD is working with a San Diego start-up called Rhevision to develop the tiny sensor. They're currently building a prototype that … Read more