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Not what it appears to be: the Archaic Mark LONDON. A clever bit of detective work by US scholars and scientists has proven that one of the jewels of the University of Chicago’s manuscript collection is, in fact, a skilled late 19th- or early 20th-century forgery. Although speculation as to the authenticity of the Archaic Mark codex has been rife for more than 60 years, prior to this definitive research many believed it was an early record (possibly as early as the 14th century) of the Gospel of Mark and the closest of any extant manuscript to the world’s oldest...

Raman spectroscopy souped up with scanning tunnelling microscopy hones in on individual atoms and bonds. Prepare to take flight across the surface of a molecule. An unprecedented window on the nanoscale world lets you feel the heft of the atoms beneath and test the strength of the chemical bonds that hold them together. This vision is now a reality, thanks to a system reported in this week's Nature1 that combines the best features of two imaging techniques: Raman spectroscopy and the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM). “It enables you to look at the guts of a molecule,” says Joanna Atkin, a...

Scientists in Japan have developed a technique that could diagnose malaria just one day after infection.It is estimated that in 2010 over 200 million people were infected with malaria and over 600 thousand people died from it. Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites that are transmitted by mosquitoes. The parasites invade red blood cells, eventually causing the cells to rupture and release the parasites so they can infect other cells.Diagnosing malaria as soon as possible maximises the effectiveness of treatment. Light microscopy is currently used in clinical settings to diagnose malaria but is not very effective at catching the low...

Doctors could soon be using Raman spectroscopy to peform 'optical biopsies' of tumours © ShutterstockCurrently the only way to identify whether a suspicious lump is something to be concerned about is to have it removed surgically and then examined by histological review. But a new diagnostic technique based around Raman spectroscopy could provide a faster diagnosis without the need for such invasive procedures.Raman Spectroscopy has been used previously to distinguish benign and metastatic axillary lymph nodes (in the breast) and mediastinal nodes (in the oesophagus). Now Nicholas Stone and co-workers at the University of Exeter, UK have now applied the...

Posted: 10/11/2011; Future Microbiol. 2011;6(9):991-997. © 2011 Future Medicine Ltd. Abstract and Introduction Over the last decade Raman spectroscopy has become established as a physicochemical technique for the rapid identification of microbes. This powerful analytical method generates a spectroscopic fingerprint from the microbial sample, which provides quantitative and qualitative information that can be used to characterize, discriminate and identify microorganisms, in both bacteria slurry and at the single-cell level. Recent developments in Raman spectroscopy have dramatically increased in recent years due to the enhancement of the signal by techniques including tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy and due...

Schematic diagram of experimental configuration used for 1064nm SORS measurementsA team working in the UK have demonstrated that spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) using short wave infrared can detect chemicals through physical barriers such as containers, which is a step forward in detection and security.The performance of SORS compared to conventional Raman (CR) spectroscopy to detect the sub-surface layer beneath a barrier is better because of its ability to suppress fluorescence and Raman scattering from the target container. However, there is still a problem with the fluorescence of the target chemical beneath, as this can mask the useful Raman...