A team of scientists at JILA, a joint institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder, has shown that by sampling a person’s breath with laser light they can detect molecules in the breath that may be markers for diseases like asthma or cancer. While many studies have been done to showcase the potential of optical technologies for breath analysis, the JILA approach takes an important step toward demonstrating the full power of optics for this prospective medical application.

The technique, called cavity-enhanced direct optical frequency comb spectroscopy, may one day allow doctors to screen people for certain diseases simply by sampling their breath. “This technique can give a broad picture of many different molecules in the breath all at once,” says Jun Ye, who led the research. He is a fellow of JILA, a fellow of NIST and a professor adjoint at CU-Boulder’s Department of Physics.

Large-scale digital music distribution is bringing about a profound revolution in the way we ‘consume’ music. The market is still in flux, but it is very clear that the hi-fi systems of the future will be significantly different to what we see today, say European researchers.

With the advent of compressed music files (MP3) and easily accessible internet file exchange and download services, consumers are increasingly turning to personal mini-databases of music files (iPod, MP3 players) for their musical enjoyment. The CD market has already taken a hard knock and many predict its imminent demise. The hi-fi market is also suffering with sales decreasing steadily every year.

Anyone trying to build sandcastles on the beach will need some degree of skill and imagination, but not an instruction manual. The water content is actually relatively unimportant to the mechanical properties of the sand.

This observation, which is borne out by precise measurements in the laboratory, puzzles researchers.

Even with water content of just 3%, the fluid inside represents a highly-complex structure. The mechanical stiffness of the wet sand remains practically constant with moisture ranging from less than 1% to well over 10%, although the fluid structure changes enormously internally.

While most people understand the dangers of flushing toxic chemicals into the ecosystem through municipal sewer systems, one potentially devastating threat to wild fish populations comes from an unlikely source: estrogen.

After an exhaustive seven-year research effort, Canadian biologists found that miniscule amounts of estrogen present in municipal wastewater discharges can decimate wild fish populations living downstream.

The strange world of quantum mechanics can provide a way to surpass limits in speed, efficiency and accuracy of computing, communications and measurement, according to research by MIT scientist Seth Lloyd.

Quantum mechanics is the set of physical theories that explain the behavior of matter and energy at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It includes a number of strange properties that differ significantly from the way things work at sizes that people can observe directly, which are governed by classical physics.

A relatively small proportion of individuals with hypertension (high blood pressure) eat diets that align with government guidelines for controlling the disease, according to a report in the February 11 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In fact, since the introduction of a diet shown to help reduce blood pressure, the dietary quality of those with hypertension has decreased.