One-hundred million frames per second. That is the speed of one of the most sophisticated high-resolution video cameras, which is soon to be in development at the new Rosalind Franklin Institute for use in cancer treatment research.
The high-speed camera would enable researchers to capture video in unparalleled detail, exploring how light and sound can be used in innovative medical treatments.
“Understanding the mechanisms by which drugs can be efficiently distributed throughout a tumor may hold the key to developing effective treatments,” Eleanor Stride, an Oxford University engineer working on the project, told Digital Trends. “The camera will allow us to observe this microscopic and incredibly rapid processes for the first time.”
When it comes to studying how light and sound act upon human tissue, Stride said current high-speed cameras simply don’t make the grade in their combination of speed, resolution, and number of frames. “We needed to design a completely new system.”
The new system will be the first camera to capture 100 million individual frames per second at a one-megapixel resolution, while working across the spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. Current comparable cameras run at top speeds of 25 million frames per second.
The camera will consist of an approximately $2 million internal sensor, which will function like a hypersensitive version of what you would otherwise get in a digital camera, with another $4 million in optical components, electronic parts, and labor.
The researchers insist the price tag is worth the potential benefits.
“We are investigating multiple applications [for the camera],” Stride said. “For example, how drug-loaded particles that respond to ultrasound or lasers can be triggered to release and distribute their payloads to make sure that every cancer cell within a tumor is treated. How different wavelengths … of light can tell us whether an organ is receiving sufficient oxygen or not. Whether or not plaques are forming in a blood vessel to enable early-stage treatment of atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.”
Stride also pointed to applications outside of medicine, such as studying how to make materials stronger and “potentially even the initiation and control of nuclear fusion for clean energy generation.”
The researchers hope to have a working prototype in two years and a fully functional instrument within three. The project is a joint venture between multiple universities in the United Kingdom, including the University of Cambridge, University of Manchester, and Imperial College London.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.