Dynasil Acquires RMD for $20M
Photonics company Dynasil Corp. of America announced July 2 that it acquired advanced instruments maker Radiation Monitoring Devices (RMD) and assets of RMD Instruments LLC for $20 million in cash and...
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Light Pulse Speed Record Set
Researchers have set a new record in ultrafast metrology, producing the first light pulses lasting only 80 attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second). Electrons move at awesome speeds, so an...
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Oerlikon Divests Magnetic IP
Switzerland-based high technology company Oerlikon Balzers Ltd. is selling its magnetic media equipment assets and intellectual property (IP), the buyer, Intevac, announced last week. Financial terms ...
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Agilent Buys Nano Instruments
Measurement company Agilent Technologies Inc. announced today it has acquired the Nano Instruments business unit of MTS Systems Corp for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its nanomeasurement product...
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StockerYale Begins Takeover
With Virtek Vision International Inc.'s largest shareholder on its side, StockerYale Inc. today announced it is beginning a cash takeover bid for the Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of laser engraving, ...
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Solar Research Tops Agenda
The latest research, technologies and applications in solar and alternative energies, nanotechnology, organic LEDs, optical design and remote sensing will be discussed at SPIE Optics+Photonics 2008, t...
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Patterns Classify Cancer
Long has “nature versus nurture” been a convenient catchphrase to describe what determines or causes individual differences in physical and behavioral traits. Now, nature and nurture have both fou...
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Lighting Up Life on Mars
A method to identify organic matter in soils with ultraviolet (UV) light could be used to document the existence of life on Mars. A team of scientists from the US and the UK have reported a technique ...
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'Clutch' Stops Flagella
The flagellum -- a rotating, tail-like structure that makes a bacterium swim, is powered by a molecular engine at its base. But what makes it stop? Answer: It uses its clutch. A tiny but powerful engi...
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Micromagnets for MRIs
MRIs are coming to you live and in color. Thanks to tiny magnets that could one day be injected into the body, MRIs will be able to provide enhanced sensitivity, more information and color to a pr...
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Light Creates Tiny Patterns
The old trick, practiced by schoolboys everywhere, of concentrating a beam of sunlight through a magnifying lens to ignite paper -- or an unfortunate ant -- has been given a new twist. By using a micr...
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UIowa to Assess Lab Damage
It will be months before the full extent of flood damage sustained by the Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories (IATL) is known, a University of Iowa official said Wednesday. The facility remains clos...
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Light 'Cooks' Cancer Cells
A new way to kill cancer cells has been found by attaching cancer-seeking antibodies to tiny carbon tubes that heat up when exposed to near-infrared light. Biomedical scientists at the University of T...
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A Worm of a Different Color
A mutant worm changes color when it moves as the result of an optical sensor called stFRET. The sensor is composed of a pair of fluorescent molecules connected by a molecular spring that is inserted i...
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Mass. Biotech Bill Signed
A $1 billion, 10-year plan to boost Massachusetts' position in the life sciences was signed by Gov. Deval Patrick, joined by Senate President Therese Murray and Speaker of the House Salvatore F. DiMas...
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A Controllable Camera Pill
Pills containing tiny cameras pass through the esophagus in as little three seconds, not long enough to provide useful data. But now researchers have devised a camera pill that can be stopped and stee...
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StockerYale Talks Takeover
Despite Virtek Vision International Inc.'s rejection of its $22 million buyout offer, StockerYale said today it still hopes to reach an agreement with the company but will also seek to acquire it via ...
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Sandstone to Stop Imports
A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning has prompted, in part, a small Alabama laser company to expand its US manufacturing operations. Sandstone Medical Technologies LLC, a Birmingham-based p...
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Listening to Black Holes
Can you hear black holes collide? That question, among others, will be explored at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, to be held June 30 to July 3 at the Royal Society facilities in London. ...
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Tiny Blinds Bend Beams
A new way of bending x-ray beams could lead to greatly improved space telescopes, as well as new tools for biology and semiconductor chip manufacturing. X-rays from space provide astronomers with impo...
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Quantum Images Easily Made
A simple and flexible method for creating twin light beams has been used to produce quantum images, visual patterns with features linked by the laws of quantum physics. The method could help with the ...
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NRC Probes Cracked Vial
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating a reported incident in which a cracked vial holding a small plutonium sample was discovered by researchers in a lab at the Commerce Department's N...
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ACT Will Ban Laser Pointers
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government will ban high-powered laser pointers under the Prohibited Weapons Act of 1996, Minister for Police and Emergency Services Simon Corbell announced toda...
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Genzel Wins $1M Shaw Prize
The leader of an international team that showed the Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center has been awarded the $1 million Shaw Prize in Astronomy. Reinhard Genzel, director of t...
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Hologic Acquiring Third Wave
Medical imaging systems maker Hologic Inc. announced it will acquire Third Wave Technologies Inc. for $11.25 per share, or approximately $580 million. Madison, Wis.-based Third Wave develops molecular...
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MEMS Muscle Awarded
A mechanical micromuscle with nanoscopic movements and a microcreep-and-stress tester, both designed by students, were the big winners in Sandia National Laboratories’ fourth annual University Allianc...
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Conjuring Robert Koch
Today, one in three persons is infected with the tuberculosis pathogen, and the World Heath Organization (WHO) estimates that there will be 30 million deaths caused by tuberculosis in the next yea...
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Sizing Up Graphene
The extraordinary properties of graphene have reportedly been measured with an accuracy never before achieved, confirming many of its strangest features but revealing significant departures from theor...
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Sensors Supply Power
A miniature conveyor system that uses wireless sensors with their own power supply could provide a long-awaited solution to assembly snafus. When a machine breaks down, production often comes to a sta...
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Photline and AdLightec Merge
Photline Technologies, a supplier of optical modulation products, announced it has merged with French startup AdLightec, a supplier of high-speed electronic modules. The new company will operate as Ph...
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Room-Temperature SCs?
Newly discovered iron-based high-temperature superconductors could pave the way for the development of superconductors that can operate at room temperature. "If superconductors could exist at room tem...
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Moon Mirrors Imagined
An innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the moon has been concocted by scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on E...
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Partnership for Live-cell Research
Nikon Instruments and Northwestern University are opening a collaborative core microscopy imaging center that will improve research capabilities at the University while providing Nikon with critic...
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Material Superabsorbs Light
A metamaterial has been engineered that is capable of absorbing essentially all of the light that hits it.Using standard optical lithography techniques, a team from Boston College in Chestnut Hill and...
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Cell Invasion on Agenda
The cellular aspects of infection, including cell invasion and host-pathogen interactions, will be the topic of a one-day meeting to be co-sponsored by the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) and the So...
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