hausen - Slashdot User

Submission + - Microfluidic Chips made with Shrinky Dinks

Submitted by

SoyChemist

on Tuesday December 04, 2007 @05:25AM

SoyChemist writes: "When she started her job as a new professor at UC Merced, Michelle Khine was stuck without a clean room or semiconductor fabrication equipment, so she went MacGyver and started making Lab-on-a-Chip devices in her kitchen with Shrinky Dinks, a laser printer, and a toaster oven. She would print a negative image of the channels onto the polystyrene sheets and then make them smaller with heat. The miniaturized pattern served as a perfect mould for forming rounded, narrow channels in PDMS — a clear, synthetic rubber."

Submission + - Skype 2.0 beta for Linux supports video calling (skype.com)

Submitted by hausen on Saturday November 10, 2007 @04:08PM

hausen writes: Skype 2.0 beta for Linux, a. k. a. ‘The Great Revolution’, was released on November 7. Now, Linux users are able to place and receive video calls, and the video can be shown in full screen. There are also other improvements and bug-fixes. The developers have released packages for Debian Etch, Ubuntu, Mepis, Xandros, Centos, Fedora 7 and 6, OpenSUSE 10+ and Mandriva, as well as two versions of distro-independent binaries (dynamically or statically linked).

Submission + - The first image taken with an ultra low field MRI (arxivblog.com)

Submitted by

KentuckyFC

on Friday November 09, 2007 @06:02AM

KentuckyFC writes: "MRI machines are about to get smaller, much smaller. Most of their bulk is taken up by the huge superconducting magnets required to generate fields of about a Tesla. Now a team at the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico has built a machine that can produce images using a field of only a few microTesla. So giant superconducting magnets aren't necessary, a development that has the potential to make MRI machines much smaller, perhaps even suitcase sized. Today, the team has posted sections of the first 3D brain image taken with the device (abstract, pdf)."

Submission + - Cosmic 'Bullets' Traced to Galactic Black Holes 1

Submitted by dork on Friday November 09, 2007 @05:01AM

dork writes: The Pierre Auger Observatory announced that active galactic nuclei are the most likely candidates for the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays that hit Earth. Using the Southern Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, the largest cosmic-ray observatory in the world, spanning over more than 3000 square kilometers, they found that the sources of the highest-energy particles are not distributed uniformly across the sky, linking the origins of these "cosmic bullets" to the locations of nearby galaxies, hosting active nuclei in their centers. These galaxies are thought to be powered by supermassive monster black holes that are devouring large amounts of matter. The exact mechanism of how particles get accelerated to energies 100 million times higher than achievable by the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth is still a mystery. A fraction of recorded events is also available through a public online event display.

Submission + - Computer club to hold 'nerd auction' for dates (cnn.com)

Submitted by cuco on Friday October 26, 2007 @06:05PM

cuco writes: Looking to recruit more women, and perhaps date some sorority women, the largest computer club at Washington State University hopes to hold a "nerd auction." The idea is to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover and, possibly, a date. "You can buy a nerd and he'll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you're really adventurous, take you to dinner!" Ben Ford, president of the Linux Users Group, said on its Web site. Ford, who has an undergraduate degree in computer science and is pursuing a master's in business management, has spoken to several sororities, but so far none has committed to the project.

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