http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. It will perhaps be possible, in the near future, to detect cancer by a simple blood or urine test. In fact, biologists from CNRS, Inserm, Paris Descartes and Strasbourg universities have developed a technique capable of detecting minute traces of tumoral DNA present in the biological fluids of patients suffering from cancer. The method consists in carrying out ultra-sensitive molecular analyses in microscopic droplets. Successfully tested on genes involved in various cancers, including cancer of the colon and leukemia, it has the potential of becoming a powerful tool for oncologists, both in making a diagnosis and in prescribing a treatment. A clinical study is already envisaged to evaluate this technique. The work is published on the website of the journal Lab on a chip. http://phys.org/news225366367.html Chemistry Mon, 23 May 2011 10:46:29 EST news225366367 Dutch computer chip equipment maker ASML on Wednesday announced net losses for the first quarter after a collapse in sales, but said it saw signs of improving market conditions. http://phys.org/news158991897.html Technology Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:26:17 EST news158991897 (AP) -- Intel Corp.'s first-quarter profit blew past Wall Street's grim forecasts as the chip maker's CEO proclaimed Tuesday that personal computer sales "bottomed out" and have started recovering. http://phys.org/news158945968.html Technology Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:39:48 EST news158945968 (PhysOrg.com) -- The short-range wireless standard Bluetooth 3.0 will officially launch on April 21. The Bluetooth 3.0 standard is expected to deliver faster short-range wireless speeds up to 480 Mb per second. http://phys.org/news158583319.html Technology Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:56:01 EST news158583319 Thomas Brunschwiler, Urs Kloter, Ryan Linderman, Bruno Michel from the IBM's Zurich Research Lab in Switzerland and Hilton Toy from the IBM Server & Technology Group in Fishkill, New York, have been honored with the 2008 Harvey Rosten Award of Excellence for their work in overcoming a barrier in chip cooling by improving the application of a paste that binds chips to their cooling systems. The new technology will allow for faster computer chips to be cooled more efficiently. Mr. Michel represented the team and accepted the award at the IEEE SEMI-THERM 25 Symposium. http://phys.org/news158259131.html Technology Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:52:46 EST news158259131 The world's biggest chip maker Intel rolled out a line of "revolutionary" chips designed as high-performance engines for datacenters, work stations and research computers. http://phys.org/news157702685.html Electronics Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:18:36 EST news157702685 A UCSF research team has developed a technique to distinguish benign moles from malignant melanomas by measuring differences in levels of genetic markers. Standard microscopic examinations of biopsied tissue can be ambiguous and somewhat subjective, the researchers say, and supplementing standard practice with the new technique is expected to help clarify difficult-to-diagnose cases. http://phys.org/news157653601.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:40:22 EST news157653601 It is the nightmare of many a homeowner: Termites merrily eating away at the family castle. http://phys.org/news157301883.html Biology Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:58:40 EST news157301883 Sepsis, an infection of the blood, can quickly overwhelm the body's defenses and is responsible for more than 200,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. Premature newborns and people with weakened immune systems are especially vulnerable. Since most existing treatments are ineffective, researchers in the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston have come up with a first line of defense -- using magnetism to quickly pull pathogens out of the blood. http://phys.org/news157215145.html Chemistry Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:54:37 EST news157215145 (AP) -- The value of Intel Corp. Chief Executive Paul Otellini's compensation package rose slightly to $12.4 million in 2008, a year in which the chip maker's profit was whacked by a global slowdown in personal computer sales. http://phys.org/news157055883.html Technology Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:38:38 EST news157055883 (PhysOrg.com) -- One minute, he's a strapping 40-year-old with an enviable cholesterol level, working out on his treadmill. The next, he's dead. http://phys.org/news156952704.html Medicine & Health Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:58:59 EST news156952704 Johns Hopkins engineers have invented a method that could be used to help figure out how cancer cells break free from neighboring tissue, an "escape" that can spread the disease to other parts of the body. The new lab-on-a-chip, described in the March issue of the journal Nature Methods, could lead to better cancer therapies. http://phys.org/news156602858.html Medicine & Health Wed, 18 Mar 2009 13:48:57 EST news156602858 (PhysOrg.com) -- The memristor is a computer component that offers both memory and logic functions in one simple package. It has the potential to transform the semiconductor industry, enabling smaller, faster, cheaper chips and computers. http://phys.org/news156526733.html Nanotechnology Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:39:33 EST news156526733 Founded in 1959, Santa Clara, Calif.-based National Semiconductor is one the oldest and best-established technology companies in Silicon Valley. But it's going through a big change under the leadership of its outspoken chairman and chief executive, Brian Halla. http://phys.org/news156019447.html Technology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:44:33 EST news156019447 (AP) -- Faced with a steep decline in sales, chip maker National Semiconductor Corp. said Wednesday it will eliminate more than one-quarter of its work force, or 1,725 jobs. http://phys.org/news155990107.html Technology Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:35:49 EST news155990107 An educational initiative between Rice University computer scientists and Indian educators will enable schools in rural India to be some of the first to benefit from Rice's revolutionary, low-energy computer chips. http://phys.org/news155939346.html Electronics Tue, 10 Mar 2009 21:29:46 EST news155939346 Worldwide semiconductor sales declined 28.6 percent in January from a year ago as the global recession continued to take a big bite out of the computer chip industry, an industry tracker said Monday. http://phys.org/news155223014.html Technology Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:31:32 EST news155223014 (PhysOrg.com) -- While the technology to make computer chips smaller and cheaper progresses each year, the fundamental structure of the chip - the computer architecture - has remained the same for decades. This led Professor David May in the Department of Computer Science to think about what a computer chip should look like for the twenty-first century. Today, his technology has unified the hardware and software worlds into one environment, such that hardware is software. http://phys.org/news154709792.html Technology Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:57:14 EST news154709792 This science may literally be outside the box: A briefcase-sized kit is carried to a field where thousands of tons of food are growing. The search is for microorganisms that could infect and kill the plants, wreaking havoc on the food supply and market. http://phys.org/news154628642.html Chemistry Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:24:24 EST news154628642 One of the challenges that cancer researchers face in designing new antitumor agents is that of predicting how drug molecules will behave in the complex microenvironment that surrounds a tumor. In particular, tumors create all sorts of chemical and physical barriers that limit how much drug is able to enter a tumor, let alone reach cells deep within a tumor. Now, Neil Forbes, Ph.D., and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts have built a microfluidic device that can mimic these chemical and physical barriers, providing researchers with a new screening tool that may help with the design of more effective anticancer drugs. http://phys.org/news154627972.html Chemistry Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:13:39 EST news154627972 Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new tool that makes it possible to study the signals in the body that control the generation of blood vessels.  The researchers’ findings, published in the new issue of Lab on a Chip, enable scientists to determine what signals in the body attract or repel blood vessels, knowledge that is extremely interesting in tumor research. http://phys.org/news154274706.html Chemistry Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:06:43 EST news154274706 For centuries, animals have been our first line of defense against toxins. A canary in a coalmine served as a living monitor for poisonous gases. Scientists used fish to test for contaminants in our water. Even with modern advances, though, it can take days to detect a fatal chemical or organism. http://phys.org/news154097769.html Chemistry Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:56:56 EST news154097769 (PhysOrg.com) -- New imaging and high capacity wireless communications systems are one step closer to reality, thanks to a millimeter wave amplifier invented at the University of California, San Diego and unveiled on Feb 11, 2009 at the prestigious International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco, Calif. http://phys.org/news153582213.html Technology Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:45:00 EST news153582213 Yale engineers have created a process that may revolutionize the manufacture of nano-devices from computer memory to biomedical sensors by exploiting a novel type of metal. The material can be molded like plastics to create features at the nano-scale and yet is more durable and stronger than silicon or steel. The work is reported in the February 12 issue of Nature. http://phys.org/news153581130.html Nanotechnology Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:26:09 EST news153581130 NEC Corporation announced today the development of chip-stacked flexible memory, which can be used to achieve a new system-on-chip (SoC) architecture. The new SoC's architecture consists of separate logic (excluding embedded memory cores) and memory chips (chip-stacked flexible memory) that are closely stacked by using a three-dimensional packaging technology. http://phys.org/news153510219.html Technology Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:44:32 EST news153510219 Toshiba Corporation today announced the prototype of a new FeRAM -- Ferroelectric Random Access Memory -- that redefines industry benchmarks for density and operating speed. The new chip realizes storage of 128-megabits and read and write speeds of 1.6-gigabytes a second, the most advanced combination of performance and density yet achieved. Full details of the new FeRAM will be presented this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2009 (ISSCC2009) in San Francisco, USA. http://phys.org/news153420638.html Technology Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:52:21 EST news153420638 Samsung Electronics announced today that it has developed and validated the first 40-nanometer (nm) class DRAM chip and module. This new 1-Gigabit DDR2 component (x8) and a corresponding 1-Gigabyte 800Mbps (Megabits per second) DDR2 SODIMM (small outline DRAM inline memory module) - both to be processed at 40-nm - have been certified in the Intel Platform Validation program for use with the Intel GM45 series Express mobile chipsets. http://phys.org/news153071195.html Electronics Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:48:04 EST news153071195 The answer to what's killing the world's coral reefs may be found in a tiny chip that fits in the palm of your hand. http://phys.org/news152994166.html Biology Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:23:19 EST news152994166 (PhysOrg.com) -- Metal efficiently blocks radiation, such as that emitted by RFID chips - small data storage units that are integrated in various objects and transmit their information to a reading device. Now, it is possible to access the information on an RFID chip even if it is surrounded by metal. http://phys.org/news152814174.html Technology Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:23:38 EST news152814174 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a prototype malaria test printed on a disposable Mylar card that could easily slip into your wallet and still work when you took it out, even months later. http://phys.org/news151776372.html Chemistry Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:06:36 EST news151776372