 |
 |
 |
|
 From BoingBoing
The Olympus Bioscapes International Digital Imaging Competition is an annual biological microscopy competition. First Prize is a selection of Olympus camera and microscope equipment worth $5,000. The contest is closed for this year, and the winners have been announced. The images are brilliant fluorescent miniature landscapes and portraits.
The image shown is a water flea, photographed by Dr. Jan Michels, from the University of Kiel in Germany.
You can view the full gallery here.
If any of our customers have their own images they would love to share with the world, submit them in the comments of this post.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
From the New York Times article:
 "Microscopes are invaluable tools to identify blood and other cells when screening for diseases like anemia, tuberculosis and malaria. But they are also bulky and expensive.
Now an engineer, using software that he developed and about $10 worth of off-the-shelf hardware, has adapted cellphones to substitute for microscopes.
... In one prototype, a slide holding a finger prick of blood can be
inserted over the phone’s camera sensor. The sensor detects the slide’s
contents and sends the information wirelessly to a hospital or regional
health center. For instance, the phones can detect the asymmetric shape
of diseased blood cells or other abnormal cells, or note an increase of
white blood cells, a sign of infection..."
An amazing development for field work, and for care in less developed areas. This tool is even more useful because of the cellular phone it is built on. A doctor in the field can use the phone to send their microscopic imagery back to a lab, and then use it to receive results from a lab, without ever having to bring physical samples to a lab, or return to pick up results.
This technology uses light interference to create a 3-D hologram of the cells on a slide rather than passing light through it, so it reveals different features than a normal microscope. It seems from the article that the interior details of a cell are not visible with this type of microscope. The invention could still become an invaluable tool for early screening of parasitic diseases, spikes or decreases in blood cell count, and other diseases that affect the shape or quantity of cell structures.
Have any of our readers had any experience with this type of holographic blood scan? How about any training opportunities to study similar techniques?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
TED talks are an annual conference for sharing revolutionary ideas and inventions with the scientific community at large. This year saw the addition of TEDMED, dedicated to innovations in the medical field, and Wired.com provided a great overview.
This year's talks were heavily centered around gadgets, digitization and how they might impact the future of medicine. Wireless monitoring technologies were shown off, a project to collect over 100,000 human genomes is off to a solid start, and living cultures of artificially grown tissue were passed around to attendees.
All in all, a great article on some phenomenal innovations. Read more for an excerpt from the article, or Click here to view it on Wired.com.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jessica Terry, 18 years old, discovered a telltale granuloma in one of her own pathology slides, leading to a successful diagnosis for a disease that had been a mystery to her doctors for years. Clearly a young histologist/pathologist in the making.
Glossed over in the article is the participation of the local, unnamed pathlogist who was working with her class to train them. I've never seen histology taught at a high school level before, but it definitely seems to have made a difference for at least one student. What are the thoughts of our histo readers? Would you be in favor of high school students getting a more advanced exposure to histology and medical education in general?
From the CNN Article
 "For eight years, Jessica Terry suffered from stomach pain so horrible,
it brought her to her knees. The pain, along with diarrhea, vomiting
and fever, made her so sick, she lost weight and often had to miss
school.
Her doctors, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't figure out the cause of Jessica's abdominal distress.
Then one day in January, Terry, 18, figured it out on her own."
Read the whole article at CNN.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wired Science™ and Nikon™
hold an annual contest for the world's best microscopic photography,
and this year's winners are truly amazing. There is a heavy slant
towards flourescent or color enhanced microscopy for the vivid colors
they produce, but there are some very nicely stained images in the
historical winners categories.
 From the Wired Science article:
" Winning the popular vote online out of 137 finalists was [this image]... by
Dennis Breitsprecher of the Institute of Biophysical Chemistry at
Germany’s Hannover Medical School."
Read More at Wired Science
Do
any of our readers enter this contest or have their own images they'd
like to share with HistoWorld? Post them in the comments here!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Researchers at UCLA have imaged a virus at high enough resolution to essentially "view" its constituent atoms, according to a report in the April 30 edition of the journal Cell. This is the first published report of a biological imaging at such a high resolution.
This review by "Morgan" at Morganonscience.com shows off the features and benefits of the iPad from the perspective of a scientific researcher. It touches on a number of key features and usability issues that are not typically considered by the more technology-oriented blogs. 
If you're looking for an interesting and amusing way to spice an upcoming holiday party, the amazing culinary artists at 
“A new chip, developed at 
The brain of famous amnesiac patient 
Evidence for Green Tea as a cancer prevention method continues to grow, though scientists are not yet ready to officially endorse it for that purpose. The results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research suggests a reduction in oral cancer.