electroscalpel

Neither the electroscalpel (a surgical cutting tool) nor mass spectrometry (a technique to identify a molecule's elemental composition by measuring the ratio between its mass and charge) is new. But using the two together may enable surgeons to detect cancerous cells during, instead of before and after, surgery.

"When a surgeon is performing cancer surgery, he doesn't have any direct information on where the tumor is," Zoltán Takáts, a professor at Justus-Liebig University in Giessen, Germany, tells Technology Review. Being able to detect, analyze, and remove cells during surgery might result in … Read more