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March 21, 2012
 

Seeing around walls

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have created a camera that is able to record images of objects hidden behind walls. They fire a pulse of laser light at a wall on the far side of the hidden scene, and record the time at which the scattered light reaches a camera. Photons bounce off the wall onto the hidden object and back to the wall, scattering each time, before a small fraction eventually reaches the camera, each at a slightly different time. The camera captures this time-of-flight information and uses it to reconstruct an image of the hidden object (abstract).

Very informative video in 3...2...1

via

Filed under  //   MIT   innovation   science  

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August 27, 2010
 

Asteroids!

Beautiful visualization of asteroid discoveries in the past 30 years. Watch the video and be amazed that we haven't had to send Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck into space yet. 

via FlowingData

Filed under  //   info-viz   science   space   tech  

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December 16, 2009
 

Exposure and Mutation Rate

 

No commentary from me, just a fascinating set of figures from new research that has successfully mapped the cancer genomes for skin and lung cancers:

"Scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure. The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure. From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer."

 

How's that for a deterrent?

Excerpted from Scientists Crack Genetic Code of Cancer

Filed under  //   cancer   health   research   science  

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