JJ Nitro

2007-11-02, 17:38:57

Here's my favorite science quote of the week: 

"I hate to sound like I'm selling a Ginsu knife - 'But wait, there's more! It also slices and dices!' - but this one nanotube does everything," Zettl said.

—in the San Francisco Chronicle, nanotech researcher Alex Zettl of UC Berkeley describing his carbon nanotube radio, in which a single carbon nanotube performs all the key functions of a radio: antenna, tuner, amplifier, and demodulator

2007-11-02, 16:59:48

If a retired radio station owner told you he assembled, in his garage, a radio-wave generator for zapping cancer, you'd probably think he was crazy.

But John Kanzius of Florida is being taken seriously by doctors, and his device has been put to the test—with great success in killing tumors in mice.

He started work on the device after being diagnosed with leukemia, and undergoing chemotherapy.

"I said to myself, 'Today's chemotherapy is cruel. There's gotta be a better way to cure cancer,'" Kanzius told ABC News.

When I read about the amateur scientists and polymaths of centuries past, it seems kind of sad that today's scientists have to be so specialized. So it's nice to hear that garage inventors can still make a contribution.

Whether this will pan out out treating people remains to be seen, but I hope it does.

Link to an ABC news article about Kanzius's work.

2007-11-01, 08:43:43 

I still get excited when something I suggest or that I've written gets picked up on Boing Boing, like this: 

Link to the original post, or to the Nature Medicine article. 

2007-11-01, 08:37:38

I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan, but still I thought it was pretty cool that my local pub, Atwood's Tavern, had a Star Wars-themed Halloween party.