Tired of ditching your water-bottle on the way to airport security? A group of German physicists may be able to eliminate this nuisance of restricting carry-on liquids. They have a test for liquids that could be used as explosives that takes only 0.2 seconds. The method, called Hilbert spectroscopy, operates over a very wide range of frequencies — a few gigahertz to a few terahertz. The signal is analyzed for the chemical fingerprint of hazardous liquids using a Josephson junction, a sensitive device made from two weakly-coupled superconductors. Their research is described in a paper in Superconductor Science and Technology.

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Oxford Instruments Industrial Analysis provides desktop, portable, and handheld X-ray Fluorescence (XRF, EDXRF, WDXRF), and Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) analysis systems, coating thickness measurement, and gauging instrumentation (Eddy-Current) to industrial customers with diverse needs. Our globally known product names are X-MET, Lab-X, X-Supreme, X-Strata, PMI-MASTER, FOUNDRY-MASTER, and CMI.

The new ProRaman series industrial Raman analyzer detect and analyze low concentration ions and molecules in solutions. The ProRaman measure sulfate ions with down to 2.5 ppm and nitrate ions to below 1 ppm. Industrial applications including cleaning, environmental, paper, mining, etc. could benefit from this high performance and afforadable on-line Raman analyzer.

Count on Denver Instrument for quick moisture results to keep your production in process. While standard oven methods take hours to return results, Denver moisture analyzers provide results in minutes! Three models offer a variety of features: rugged designs, single or multiple test methods, and semi to fully adjustable end-points.

Gas chromatography is an excellent method of testing for the presence of explosives. But it can also be dangerous, as you might expect, given the need to heat unstable compounds. A recent paper in the Journal of Chromatography A suggests ways to minimize the danger of an explosion while testing.

She died 2500 years ago, but the cause of death has just been determined to be tuberculosis, rather than ovarian cancer as diagnosed by a first autopsy performed over 100 years ago. Current researchers used liquid chromatography on bone and soft tissue from the mummy. The Guardian article includes a podcast link about the findings.

They have great resolution, but conventional electron microscopes are too energetic to use with living cells without killing them. MIT researchers are developing an imager that gently wafts an electron between two rings, detecting the drag on the electron when it encounters matter. Such a probe could be compatible with living cells.

Superresolution microscopy techniques with acronyms like F-PALM, STORM, and STED use visible light to image living cells. They offer unprecedented resolution and can image individual proteins within living cells. They also offer insights into brain function and diseases like Alzheimer's, and potential for drug discovery.

The CS600 provides advanced solutions for determining carbon and sulfur in a wide variety of metals and inorganic materials. Combining proven high-frequency combustion, infrared detector technology, intuitive software, and multiple automation options, users achieve greater accuracy, precision, and ease-of-use for everyday elemental determination. For more, visit www.leco.com.

Tower Optical can make Spherical Lenses to your custom design and to suit your specific applications. Common coatings are AR (Anti Reflective) and Broad Band AR. Coatings may be at a specific wavelength or over a broadband range. Please be sure to specify your required Angle of Incidence and transmission and reflectance requirements.

Want to know what's hot in mass spectroscopy right now? Take a gander at the internationally dispersed winners of the Journal of Mass Spectroscopy awards. These include papers on low-temperature plasma probes, probing dye redox reactions on the nanoscale, using MALDI to image lipids in eyes, and corona discharge processes.

Cyanide poisons drinking water in many developing countries, but detecting it has been costly. Now, a small molecule designed to detect cyanide in water samples has been developed that works quickly at normal pH and is easy to use. The molecule glows under ultraviolet light in the presence of even low levels of cyanide.

Persistent current (a small perpetual electric current that flows naturally through tiny rings of metal wire even without an external power source) has been measured, according to a Science paper. Nanoscale cantilevers indirectly measure the current through changes in the magnetic force it produces as it flows through the ring.

If you want to build nano-sized electronics, you need to quantify material properties on a nano-scale. Researchers in materials science, biophysics, and semiconductor technology can measure dielectric constants on the nanoscale with a commercial atomic force microscope without the need for more sophisticated electronics.

Why wait when you can do it yourself? The Phenom personal electron microscope is the world's fastest desktop SEM. Now, you can quickly obtain high-quality, high-resolution sub-micron images in a matter of seconds. In a world where time is money, the Phenom return on investment in time-savings is… phenomenal.

Accurately measuring humidity is the most difficult measurement you will ever make. And possibly the most valuable, too. We make life easier with our precision chilled mirror hygrometers and VAPORTRON® humidity calibration system, Find out more by checking out our new Web site for more details.

The Reichert r²i300 is fast and accurate, in a compact design! The r²i300 can hold up to seven custom channels, all with or without Automatic Temperature Correction (Compensation). The r²i300 meets the testing requirements of various industries, including Food, Beverage, Chemical, Pharmaceutical, and Petroleum. Visit our Web site for more information.

Acrylic mirror and colored acrylic mirror are rigid, impact-resistant, weatherable, and lightweight thermoplastic sheets. Acrylic mirror offers excellent optical quality with half the weight of glass and many times the impact resistance. Acrylic mirror sheet offers the high clarity of glass mirror and the ease of handling and fabricating expected of extruded sheet.

The program of the 2009 Materials Research Society's Fall Meeting, November 30 - December 4 in Boston, addresses leading-edge research and captures the extraordinary progress in materials science and technology, featuring an exciting mix of topics. Fifty symposia include Information Processing and Sensing, Nanoscience and Technology, Energy and the Environment, Materials modeling and simulation, and Health and Biological Materials.

Winners of the Nikon Small World photography contest include extraordinarily beautiful microscope images of living subjects. The contest was started in 1974 to recognize excellence in photography through the microscope. A bit of a mustard plant (pictured) taken with a confocal microscope won first place. Winners will be part of a touring exhibit, or check the online gallery. View the Top 20, the Honorable Mentions, and a complete gallery of Images of Distinction.

Paranormal 'Science' for Entertainment

Do shows like 'Ghosthunters' merely misuse science by using EMF detectors to "seek" ghosts? Is it their approach inherently anti-science? Do you find this misuse of science equipment annoying?