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Bomb-sniffing crystals may save us from nuclear Armageddon, tea leaves agree
Worried that a nuclear attack might wipe out all of American civilization? You needn't be, because the scientific community's crystal ball says crystal balls may save humanity. Last week, the Department of Energy awarded a $900,000 grant to Fisk University and Wake Forest, where researchers have been busy exploring the counter-terrorist capabilities of strontium iodide crystals. Once laced with europium, these crystals can do a remarkably good job of picking up on and analyzing radiation, as the team from Fisk and other national laboratories recently discovered. Cost remains the most imposing barrier to deploying the materials at airports or national borders, though soothsaying scientists claim it's only a matter of time before they develop a way to produce greater crystalline quantities at an affordable price. The only thing Miss Cleo sees is a glistening press release, in your very near, post-break future.
Researchers tout progress with 'skin printers,' hope to one day treat battlefield wounds
We've already seen that living tissue can be printed using what amounts to a bio-inkjet printer, and some researchers from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine now say they've made some considerable progress that could bring the technology one step closer to use on the battlefield. Specifically, they've been able to speed up the healing of wounds on mice using a "printed" swath of tissue and completely heal the wound in three weeks, whereas an untreated wound did not heal itself in the same time period. Of course, there's no word on any plans for tests on humans just yet, but the researchers do plan to take one more step in that direction by moving on to tests on pigs next.
"Largest ever" study finds tasers safe
Not that you needed any kind of study to prove that your shiny new personal stun gun was safe to use, but Dr. William Bozeman and colleagues have just wrapped up an independent study that "suggests the devices are safe, causing a low occurrence of serious injuries." The research was conducted at Wake Forest University, and it showed that out of "nearly 1,000 cases, 99.7-percent of those subjected to a taser had mild injuries, such as scrapes and bruises, or none at all," while the remaining sliver received injuries severe enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. Granted, Dr. Bozeman did admit that tasers could "clearly cause injuries and even deaths in some cases," but insinuated that the risk was quite low. Tase on, we guess.[Via Physorg]
