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Physicists create tiny ruler to easily measure nanoscale contraptions
How do you measure items constructed on a nanoscale assembly line? Why, using a plasmon ruler that measures how much the structure's surrounding gas resonates, of course... and it just so happens that science has theoretically built a better one than ever before. Researchers at China's Wuhan University discovered that by using nanospheres "to modify surface plasmon coupling of a nanorod dimer" -- yes, that's a little over our heads, too -- they could create a linear plasmon ruler that allows one to read how far apart the particles are using a far simpler calculation and modify the range of measurement more easily too. None of this may seem important to you at the moment, but remember: nobody wants imprecisely-sized nanites crawling through their tubes.
Microfluidic chip does 1,000 parallel chemical reactions, looks glorious
We'd never considered a career in biochemistry until we saw this wild beast of a chemical microprocessor. Microfluidic chips, used to test chemical reactions and properties, have been known to be smaller, but they've never before been quite this powerful. The result of a joint study between California State University, UCLA and China's Wuhan University, the "integrated microfluidic device" is capable of performing 1,024 in situ chemical reactions at a time, making the researcher's life, oh, about 1,024 times easier. Most importantly though, costly enzymes previously used for a single test can now be split up into hundreds and tested simultaneously, which should pave the way for exponentially faster and easier medical research. It's not clear when these will be widely available, but we're sure PhDs around the world are trying to order one as we speak.[Via medGadget]
