The damage caused by COVID-19 to the lungs’ smallest blood vessels has been intricately captured using high-energy X-rays emitted by a special type of particle accelerator. Scientists from UCL and the European Synchrotron Research Facility (ESRF) used a new revolutionary imaging technology called Hierarchical Phase-Contrast Tomography (HiP-CT), to scan donated human organs, including lungs from…

Researchers have demonstrated the first experimental cross-sectional medical image that doesn’t require tomography, a mathematical process used to reconstruct images in CT and PET scans. The work could lead to cheaper, easier and more accurate medical imaging. The advance was made possible by development of new, ultrafast photon detectors, said Simon Cherry, professor of biomedical…

The ability to visualize cancerous tumors and metastatic tissue three dimensionally (3D) can help clinicians diagnose the precise type and stage of cancer, while also informing the best treatment methods. To obtain an even clearer tissue for imaging, a research team based in Japan has tested the effectiveness of specialized hydrogels. Acting as a 3D…

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a research team went looking for and found a way to make standard surgical masks better at keeping out small airborne droplets that might contain the SARS-CoV-2 virus. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, a team at Rice University’s George R. Brown School of Engineering…

Researchers report on the development of a low-cost, portable, non-invasive device that uses light and saliva to test COVID-19 patients in less than 30 minutes. The results have shown that the device can detect very low concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 with a sensitivity of 91.2 percent and a specificity of 90 percent, similar to that of…

Most noninvasive brain scanning systems use continuous-wave fNIRS, where the tissue is irradiated by a constant stream of photons. However, these systems cannot differentiate between scattered and absorbed photons. A recent advancement to this technique is time-domain (TD)-fNIRS, which uses picosecond pulses of light and fast detectors to estimate photon scattering and absorption in tissues.…

One of the best chances for proving beyond-the-standard-model physics relies on something called the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. The standard model insists that the CKM matrix, which describes the mixing of quarks, should be unitary. But growing evidence suggests that during certain forms of radioactive decay, the unitarity of the CKM matrix might break. At the…

A team has developed a tool to monitor changes in widely used composite materials known as fiber reinforced polymers (FRPs), which can be found in everything from aerospace and infrastructure to wind turbines. The new tool, integrated into these materials, can help measure the damage that occurs as they age. «This gives us the ability…

New research examines heat transfer in MOFs and the role it plays when MOFs are used for storing fuel. New research led by an interdisciplinary team across six universities examines heat transfer in MOFs and the role it plays when MOFs are used for storing fuel. Corresponding author Christopher Wilmer, William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow…

Although touted as the best clean energy carrier, the explosive nature of hydrogen (H2) warrants highly sensitive gas sensors for detecting H2 leaks. Currently used gas sensors either require high operating temperatures or have low sensitivity. Now, scientists have designed a novel sensor using holey 2D zinc oxide nanosheets, which has high sensitivity and fast…