University of Illinois chemistry professor Alexander Scheeline has written software that turns a cell phone with a camera into a spectrometer, one of the most widely used instruments in chemistry for identifying and quantifying materials in both the physical and biological sciences. Scheeline firmly believes the ultra-cheap spectrometer will foster critical thinking in students. “Science […]
A salad spinner, plastic lids, yogurt containers and a hot-glue gun could be saving lives in the developing world this summer, thanks to two Rice University undergraduates. Their rudimentary blood centrifuge, which can separate blood without electricity, will be taken abroad for nearly two months this summer as part of Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB), Rice’s […]
Gene therapy theoretically makes it possible to introduce genes into cells to cure disease or address deficiencies in biological processes. But in order for gene therapy to work, foreign (or synthetic) DNA must be introduced into host cells, which is a non-trivial task. Traditionally, researchers inserted foreign DNA through the cell membrane which had been […]
