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Three groups including Georgetown University teamed up Wednesday to develop a new way to measure the glucose levels of diabetes patients without a finger prick to draw their blood.

The technique involves the use of disposable skin patches (embedded with a wireless sensor chip) that can monitor glucose levels, and then transmit that information to a cell phone. With the data, the mobile phone could conceivably control an insulin pump remotely, according to the researchers.

The organizations involved in the project are Georgetown, Gentag, and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a technology development company. Also a tech research firm, Gentag has developed an RFID-sensor reader platform for cell phones. And with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, researchers from Georgetown and SAIC created the skin patch technology, initially to monitor soldiers on the battlefield.

As part of their agreement, the groups will combine their respective intellectual property to develop the new application for diabetes patients. The patches will be able to monitor patients' blood every hour for a 24-hour period, and transmit that data to a device that's already familiar to many diabetes patients. The phones also include geolocation technology in the case of an emergency.

"We expect that this new, painless, disposable, wireless glucose sensor technology will significantly improve diabetes monitoring worldwide," Gentag President John Peeters said in a statement.

The organizations did not set a specific launch time for the technology.

Genetic-testing start-up 23andMe and a dozen of its California-based peers were ordered by state health officials last week to stop selling DNA tests to consumers until their operations could be investigated for compliance with state standards, according to the Associated Press.

The California Department of Public Health sent cease and desist letters to 13 companies, including Navigenics and 23andMe, which was co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google's Sergey Brin.

The reason? Consumers have apparently complained about the cost and accuracy of direct-to-consumer genetic tests newly available from the Web. Health officials want to ensure that the companies offering the tests are meeting federal and state mandates.

The 13 companies have two weeks to show that state and federal regulators have certified their labs. They also must show that tests ordered on their sites have been at the request of a doctor, as required by state law, according to the AP. If they don't meet those standards, then the companies face fines of up to $3,000 daily.

New York public officials sent similar notices to almost two dozen companies in April.

Biochips, or silicone (not silicon) microchips that speed up the process of traditional lab tests, can help researchers track the migration of wild salmon. Or analyze the genetic makeup of an unborn child.

They can also spark drama in the courts.

This week, South San Francisco-based Fluidigm filed a request for declaratory judgment in a U.S. District Court of New York on patents involving its BioMark system for genetic analysis, a rubber chip that can be used to analyze liquids on a nano-scale. According to the filing, Fluidigm rival Applied Biosystems had charged the company with violating its patent and asked Fluidigm to "cease and desist" from selling BioMark technology. Fluidigm is asking a court to decide.

The legal tussle comes nearly two months after Fluidigm filed to raise as much as $86 million in a public offering. The company, founded in 1991, isn't yet profitable. It has recorded a deficit of $133.8 million as of December 29, 2007, because of research and development of its technology, according to its prospectus.

But the company has recently updated its so-called integrated fluidic circuit system so that it can allow for even more finite research. Fluidigm has devised a lab-on-a-chip array with approximately 25,000 valves and 18,000 chambers, along with a computer to control and analyze biological samples piped into the chip. The new chip, which is capable of conducting more than 9,000 biochemical experiments, is about 1.5 inches on either side and is enclosed in a 4x6-inch housing.

Effectively, the BioMark system can replace more traditional, and more costly, lab equipment used by drug researchers, hospitals, or even wildlife scientists.

The Alaska Fish and Game Department, for example, has used the biochip to perform genetic analysis on migrating fish. Salmon return to where they were born to breed, and the populations from various locations are slightly genetically different, so a gene scan can tell a scientist where a fish was born and where it's headed during breeding time. With the data, the Fish and Game Department was able to determine what fishing grounds to open.

Gajus Worthington, Fluidigm's CEO, said that with its newest chip, the Fish and Game Department can conduct analysis for about 5 cents per data point, versus about 20 cents per data point for conventional stacks of test tubes.

The company's technology is also being tested for use in geno-typing, or analyzing the composition of genetically modified food seeds. And its arrays are so tiny that researchers can use it to detect the DNA of a fetus at only 11 weeks from the blood sample of the mother, according to Worthington.

DU colonization and transformation by fungus.

(Credit: University of Dundee)

Long after the shooting has stopped, radioactive dust particles dispersed by exploding, depleted uranium (DU) artillery and tank shells leave the contemporary battlefield a dangerous place--and there's been little hope of decontamination, until now.

Researchers from Scotland's University of Dundee have discovered that common backyard fungi may be the key to cleaning and reclaiming DU-contaminated soil in places like Iraq and Bosnia.

(Credit: University of Dundee)

The team found that free-living and plant symbiotic (mycorrhizal) fungi can colonize DU metallic surfaces and geochemically transform them into uranyl phosphate minerals, stabilizing the uranium, reports a study published in the journal Current Biology.

"The fungal-produced minerals are capable of long-term uranium retention, so this may help prevent uptake of uranium by plants, animals, and microbes," said Professor Geoffrey Gadd, leader of Dundee's research team. "It might also prevent the spent uranium from leaching out from the soil," he said.

Although less radioactive, DU fallout has the same chemotoxicity as uranium-235 and poses threats to humans that include nerve damage, "kidney toxicity," and lung cancer. And it can hang around for decades.

Fungi cleanup would be very low-tech, Gadd told New Scientist. Just add moisture and nutrients to the soil, which helps the fungi to flourish.

"You can go to just about any soil, and you'd find fungi that would lock away uranium," he said. "You could literally pick them from your own back garden."

NASA Ames Research Center said Thursday that it has teamed with M2Mi to develop tiny satellites called nanosats that will go into building new low-Earth orbit telecommunications systems for use in the commercial sector.

"NASA wants to work with companies to develop a new economy in space," Ames Center Director Pete Worden said in a statement.

NASA signed its third official research and development agreement with M2Mi, a software and GPS sensor company that has an office at NASA's Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. But the space agency has been working with M2Mi for at least the last two years to develop technology that helps machines or robots communicate with each other automatically, or so called machine-to-machine (M2M) intelligence. NASA has previously signed R&D agreements with companies including Google.

Nano-satellites are small satellites that weigh between 11 pounds and 110 pounds. Once built, NASA plans to send them into low-Earth orbit in clusters to create a so-called fifth-generation network, which involves voice over IP, video, and data exchange. "The constellation will provide a robust, global, space-based, high-speed network for communication, data storage, and Earth observations," M2Mi CEO Geoff Brown said in a statement.

The creators of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest particle accelerator, are being sued in a Hawaii federal court on the grounds that the project could have planet-destroying effects, according to MSNBC's science blog.

Defendants in the case, Europe's CERN Laboratory and Illinois-based Fermilab, have said that the collider is perfectly safe. But former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner, along with another concerned critic, have asked in a lawsuit that the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation, and CERN reassess the collider's security and environmental standards for at least four months before it goes into start-up mode, according to the report. Detractors worry that the collider could create mini black holes that last long enough to suck in matter all around it.

The LHC, designed to test scientific questions like "What's the nature of dark matter?," is expected to start operating later this year at CERN's headquarters in Geneva.

Space scientists and the Mars rover-loving public had quite a scare this week.

On Monday, scientists behind the solar-powered rovers Spirit and Opportunity said that they were planning to put the robots to sleep because of a NASA recommendation to trim $4 million from the program's budget. But a day later, the space agency said in a statement that neither of the robots would be shut down because of budget cuts, according to the Associated Press.

Taxpayer outcry must have been strong.

It's easy to see why: In their four years exploring the Red Planet, Spirit and Opportunity have produced scientific discoveries that have ignited the public imagination. For example, they've produced geologic evidence that water once flowed near or on the surface of Mars.

But operating rovers can be a pricey venture. Spirit and Opportunity were originally planned for missions lasting only three months, at a total cost of $820 million. Now, NASA pays about $20 million annually to keep the robots running, according to the AP.

Still, the cuts would have been a devil's bargain. NASA was trying to trim spending to cover the overrun costs of sending a new Hummer-sized rover to Mars in 2009, according to the AP. So the question remains: How will NASA shift its budget to launch its newfangled rover and keep up the twins? A request for comment from NASA was not immediately returned.

An artificial muscle that can heal itself and recharge an iPod at the same time? Sounds ludicrous, but researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have developed an electricity-generating muscle that might one day be to used to create walking robots or advanced prosthetics, according to Discovery News.

Qibing Pei, a scientist at UCLA and author of the research that appeared in the January edition of Advanced Materials, said his team developed a lifelike artificial muscle by using carbon nanotubes as electrodes. Unlike other artificial muscles made with metal-based films, this muscle can expand more than 200 percent when applied with electricity, without undergoing failure. When under pressure, the carbon nanotubes have a way of shutting down and preventing the spread of failure to other areas of the muscle so it can continue to work, according to the scientists.

The muscle is also energy-efficient, conserving 70 percent of the energy put into it, the scientists said. That electrical current can be used to power other electronics like an iPhone, or can even be used to generate ocean waves. Scientists in Japan charge batteries from ocean waves using the same idea, according to Discovery.

How much is that mastodon in the window? About $115,000, not including shipping.

Odd as it may sound, a Northern California couple has put a 3-million-year-old mastodon skeleton up for auction on eBay. A ranch hand on the Fiddler family's property, which is east of Mount Shasta, found a tooth from the animal in 1997, according to the eBay item listing. Roger Fiddler then had a paleontologist come out to identify the tooth, and a partial excavation revealed a nearly complete skeleton (The animal is missing its tusks).

The mastodon has taken an unusual path since then. It spent about three years at the Oakland Museum of California before being placed in the tasting room of a wine bar, according to Reuters. Now it resides in the Fiddlers' garage, where it seems to have overstayed its welcome.

The Fiddlers have decided to part with the rare specimen. It was just taking up too much room, Nancy Fiddler told Reuters. That, and they wanted to be able to use their sauna, which has been housing some of the beast's bones for years.