Tech Scrape

The fluorescent molecule targets tumors to guide surgeons and provide pre- and post-op imaging. A new molecule designed to seek out and label cancer cells could help guide surgeons to hidden pockets of disease–a technology that could one day allow for more complete tumor removal and increase a patient’s chances of survival.

The best of the rest from Physics arXiv this week:

Experiments in mice show that the brain’s ability to adapt might not disappear with age. Transplanting fetal neurons into the brains of young mice opens a new window on neural plasticity, or flexibility in the brain’s neural circuits. The research, published today in the journal Science , suggests that the brain’s ability to radically adapt to new situations might not be permanently lost in youth, and helps to pinpoint the factors needed to reintroduce this plasticity .

The flexible composite requires far less silicon than today’s solar cells. A new photovoltaic material performs as well as the one found in today’s best solar cells, but promises to be significantly cheaper. The material, created by researchers at Caltech, consists of a flexible array of light-absorbing silicon microwires and light-reflecting metal nanoparticles embedded in a polymer.

Fuel made from waste by-products could lower greenhouse gas emissions. A novel chemical process developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison converts cellulose from agricultural waste into gasoline and jet fuel. It produces fuel by modifying what until now had been considered unwanted by-products (levulinic acid and formic acid) of breaking cellulose down into sugar. The work was described in this week’s issue of the journal Science .

A new tool explores large sets of data–and might help organize the Web. “How do you take a big collection of things and make sense out of it?” asks Gary Flake , founder and director of Microsoft Live Labs , a division of the software giant that designs experimental Web tools. The problem is becoming more common, even for the average user, because the Web makes huge quantities of information readily available.

Its 100-kilowatt modules have been sold to Google, eBay, and Walmart. The up-to-now secretive startup Bloom Energy took the wraps off its technology this week, unveiling a fuel-cell system that the company claims can run on a variety of fuels and pay for itself in three to five years via lower energy bills.

Chrome OS is ridiculously simple–and that’s why you’ll love it. Most of this article was written on a six-year-old computer running Google’s new Chromium OS.

A novel optical device could ultimately be used to treat neurological disease. Researchers at Medtronic are developing a prototype neural implant that uses light to alter the behavior of neurons in the brain. The device is based on the emerging science of optogenetic neuromodulation, in which specific brain cells are genetically engineered to respond to light. Medtronic, the world’s largest manufacturer of biomedical technologies, aims to use the device to better understand how electrical therapies, currently used to treat Parkinson’s and other disorders, assuage symptoms of these diseases. Medtronic scientists say they will use the findings to improve the electrical stimulators the company already sells, but others ultimately hope to use optical therapies directly as treatments.

Rodents could be an effective model for researchers looking for new hepatitis drugs. Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have engineered a mouse with a mostly human liver by injecting human liver cells, or hepatocytes, into genetically engineered mice. Researchers say the mouse/human chimera could serve as a new model for discovering drugs for viral hepatitis, a disease that has been notoriously difficult to replicate and study in the lab. The team exposed the altered mice to hepatitis B and C viruses and, after treating the rodents with conventional drugs, found that the mice responded much like human patients.