HEALTH MORE SENSITIVE SCANNERS

THE PROBLEM WITH SCIENCE awards is that you only really hear about the big discoveries. No one wants to celebrate basic research – the nitty-gritty explorations into atoms and cells that make advances like spaceflight possible – because it can seem unexciting. Mona Jarrahi, associate professor in charge of the University of California, Los Angeles’ Terahertz Electronics Laboratory, could have this problem, because what she does is integrate semiconducting nanostructures into lasers to convert light into terahertz waves, then converts those waves into an electrical – see? But the thing is, the US Department of Defence, President Obama and the Nobel Prize Committee are all interested in Jarrahi’s “basic research”, because essentially what she has done is increase the sensitivity of terahertz scanners – those body scanners you get to pose in every time you go to the airport – by a factor of five.

Much like X-rays, terahertz scanners can see through clothes and inside organs, but because they employ a longer wavelength, they don’t damage DNA and can detect unique chemical signatures from substances like water. This makes terahertz waves ideal for locating both hidden explosives and cancer tumours. With the increase in power that comes from Jarrahi’s work, she’s been able to build scanners as small as a deck of cards. One day, she hopes, they’ll replace mammography machines and doctors will be able to spot breast cancer with an iphone. Currently, she is partnering with the Medstar Washington Burn Centre to see if her tiny scanner can determine the depth of injury in burn victims.

IN A SPINAL-CORD INJURY, the pathway between the brain and the muscles is interrupted and signals from the brain make it only as far as the damage in the cord. Many treatments focus on attempting to repair that path, but researchers at the USA’S Ohio State University and Battelle Memorial Institute did something different: they bypassed the spinal cord completely. This year the team, lead by Ali Rezai at Ohio State, published the results of a study in which they implanted a small chip in the motor cortex of a 24-year-old quadriplegic. As the patient attempted to replicate basic hand movements he saw on a screen, the chip recorded the neural firing patterns for each gesture. When the patient’s forearm was wrapped in a sleeve of electrodes and he was hooked up to the computer, he could think of a movement and the chip would recognise the neural pattern and broadcast the appropriate signals directly to the electrodes, moving his hand in response. Using the new technology, the patient was able to swipe a credit card, play Guitar Hero and stir cream and sugar into a drink. And all he had to do was think about it.