PIONEERING lasers which can `see’ through skin to detect disease could help doctors make an instant diagnosis.
The research team responsible believe it may end the need for exploratory surgery.
Fibre optics can penetrate less than half a centimetre into human tissue, producing images similar to ultrasound scans on a TV screen, revealing symptoms of cancer, arthritis, problems inside organs and in blood circulation.
And the researchers developing the Optical Coherence Tomography at Central Manchester and Manchester Hospitals Trust are now developing a new needle probe which can be swallowed to show problems with the airways or be placed inside joints to show muscle damage or arthritis.
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Popularity: 2% [?]
A cancer treatment up to 80 times more effective than earlier versions has been developed by British scientists.
It uses a laser light that activates a platinum compound which then kills tumour cells.
Light-activated treatments were known but the new procedure uses a platinum compound that makes it 13 to 80 times more efficient.
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Popularity: 2% [?]
In a world of pills, patches, and countless other methods to help people stop smoking, a new approach is recently gaining speed: laser technology.
For a fee, a person can go to a laser technology center and receive cold laser therapy.
The term “cold laser” is used for this type of therapy because the laser light is at a very low intensity, making it safe for use on the surface of the skin, provided the person wears protective eyewear. There are no bad side effects to using the cold laser on the skin.
During this 30 minute procedure, the laser is focused on acupuncture points on the arms, wrists, hands, ears, and nose. This helps the body release more endorphins; the same “happy” chemical that is released when a person smokes.
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Popularity: 2% [?]
In a bid to develop cleaner diesel engines, researchers are using lasers to pinpoint the exact location where soot is formed.
A technique known as laser induced incandescence is helping researchers in the Netherlands locate exactly where soot is generated. The aim is to understand optimal engine conditions and in turn reduce soot emission.
“Our technique enables the in situ investigation of soot particles during the combustion process at very short time scales,” Hans ter Meulen, a researcher at Radboud University, told optics.org.
“As far as we know, there are no other techniques to measure soot particles during the combustion process and without disturbing the process itself.”
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Popularity: 4% [?]
OTTAWA — The Canadian military has submitted details to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva about how it will test new weapons such as laser ‘dazzler’ systems for use in Afghanistan.
But an Ottawa think-tank is pushing for greater scrutiny of such purchases and how new high-tech weapons are used in the field. The Rideau Institute argues that the policy is simply a draft document and shows that Canada hasn’t moved forward in meeting its obligation under the Geneva Convention to put protocols in place governing the fielding of new arms.
The Defence Department has set aside a little more than $10 million for the purchase of laser dazzlers for use in Afghanistan. The Canadian Forces is looking at buying the devices, designed to temporarily blind individuals, as part of its efforts to reduce the number of innocent Afghans killed or wounded by troops for failing to heed warnings not to approach military convoys.
The systems are capable of disrupting the vision of a person 50 to 500 metres away, depending on the specific type of model used.
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Popularity: 3% [?]
MUMBAI: He is a pioneer in the field of lasers and despite having invented the carbon dioxide (CO2) laser more than 40 years ago, Chandra Kumar Patel’s quest for innovation goes on and on.
Patel, who received the prestigious National Science Medal from President Bill Clinton in 1996, has now embarked upon developing a laser technique that would enable law enforcement agencies to detect explosive substances and chemical warfare agents more effectively.
Patel presented the latest explosive detection technique during a colloquium at Tata Institute of Fundamenal Research (TIFR) on Wednesday.
During his talk, the 69-year-old Baramati-born Patel, who is visiting India under the Sarojini Damodaran International Fellowship Programme, said that the existing explosive detection techniques lacked high sensitivity, specificity, speed of detection and ruggedness. “As a result, the false alarm rates are pretty high and so is the inconvenience caused to the travellers.”
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Popularity: 6% [?]
An ultrasound scanner that provides more detailed 3D images of the deformed blood vessels within a tumour could help doctors determine the boundary between cancerous and healthy tissue during surgery.
The scanner uses a novel form of non-invasive imaging called photoacoustic tomography. This uses laser light to “twang” cells so they emit an ultrasound wave, which is then detected and used to form a 3D image.
Existing ultrasound scanners capture images by aiming high-frequency sound waves at the body. These waves reflect whenever the density of tissue changes, for example at the boundary between muscle and bone. The resulting “echoes” are then used to create a picture.
Such scanners are good at capturing images of high-contrast subjects like antenatal scans, but produce only low-contrast images of the inside of a tumour, because the density of blood vessels is similar to that of the surrounding tissue.
Paul Beard and colleagues at University College London, UK, have now developed a high-resolution photoacoustic tomography scanner that offers a solution.
This shoots very short pulses of non-harmful near-infrared laser light at a tumour. As the light is absorbed by tissue, the cells heat up and expand very slightly, creating an ultrasound wave that can then be detected by a sensor.
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Popularity: 11% [?]
Detection and treatment of tumours, diseased blood vessels and other soft-tissue conditions could be significantly improved, thanks to an innovative imaging system being developed that uses both light and sound.
The system uses extremely short pulses of low-energy laser light to stimulate the emission of ultrasonic acoustic waves from the tissue area being examined. These waves are then converted into high-resolution 3D images of tissue structure.
This method can be used to reveal disease in types of tissue that are more difficult to image using techniques based on x-rays or conventional ultrasound. For example, the new system is better at imaging small blood vessels, which may not be picked up at all using ultrasound. This is important in the detection of tumours, which are characterised by an increased density of blood vessels growing into the tissue.
The technique, which is completely safe, will help doctors diagnose, monitor and treat a wide range of soft-tissue conditions more effectively.
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Popularity: 7% [?]
Line Generators or Cross Lasers project a horizontal and vertical line onto a single surface. This “crosshair” pattern projects plumb and level reference lines. Line generators help with various tasks like leveling, tiling, plumbing, machine control, excavation, landscaping, swimming pool construction, concrete leveling, home building and more.
Line generators can be separated into 2 main groups, indoor and indoor/outdoor.
Although rotary lasers and line generators both project a horizontal plane, they differ in size, distance and projection.
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Popularity: 4% [?]
Applications requiring low-power lasers are expected to drive growth in the laser projection market, according to the latest report from Insight Media.
The first application to use laser projectors is expected to be rear-projection television (RPTV), driven primarily by the price and availability of lasers. That’s according to market analyst Insight Media, who also predicts that the largest single market will be pico-projectors – with sales projected to reach millions by 2012.
The report, entitled “2007 Laser Projection Systems: A study of the use of lasers as an illumination source for projection systems’, predicts that applications requiring the lowest power lasers will drive growth in the laser projection market.
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Popularity: 23% [?]
PIONEERING lasers which can `see’ through skin to detect disease could help doctors make an instant diagnosis.
