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biohazard

New flu detection test can be carried in a first aid kit

After the H1N1 "swine flu" virus jumped from pigs to human in 2009, more than 18,000 people died and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called it the first global pandemic in more than 40 years.

Today, biomedical engineers out of Brown University and Memorial Hospital in Rhode Island hope that their prototype flu detector biochip will help contain the next major flu outbreak by enabling the quickest, most accurate, and most affordable diagnosis possible.

The team's assay, which they call SMART (short for A Simple Method for Amplifying RNA Targets), consists of a series … Read more

Semiconductors could detect nuclear materials

No one wants to stumble upon the radiation warning sign. But its presence at least indicates that hazardous materials have been detected, and that there might be some form of control of those materials.

In high-risk scenarios without up-to-date signage (war zones, abandoned testing sites, and now airport security lines), it could prove quite handy to have a handheld device that can detect hard radiation--including nuclear weapons.

Chemists at Northwestern University report in the journal Advanced Materials that they are one step closer to developing such a device.

"We have designed promising semiconductor materials that, once optimized, could be … Read more

Razor cuts biothreat testing time

The question of why you opened the hand-addressed, over-stamped envelope in the first place can wait; let's deal with the white powder that spilled out on your desk.

And for that we turn to an 8-pound, battery powered polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device called the Razor. New from Idaho Technology, the Razor can analyze up to 12 samples of suspected biohazard material, including anthrax, in less than half an hour.

Described as the "gold standard" of infectious disease diagnoses, the PCR process works by exponentially amplifying DNA via enzymatic replication. The Razor streamlines that process by eliminating … Read more