Magnetic Levitation Detects Proteins, Could Diagnose Disease 26
LilaG writes "Not just a way to transport trains at high speed, magnetic levitation could find use in diagnosing disease. Researchers at Harvard have shown that they can detect proteins in blood using MagLev. The researchers, led by George Whitesides, use levitation to detect a change in the density of porous gel beads that occurs when a protein binds to ligands inside the beads. The lower the bead levitates, the more protein it holds. The method (abstract of paywalled article) could work for detecting disease proteins in people's blood samples in the developing world: The magnets cost only about $5 each, and the device requires no electricity or batteries. Because the beads are visible to the naked eye, researchers can make measurements with a simple ruler with a millimeter scale."
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Re:fr!st (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, because gallons per furlong is a useful measurement.
What you call 'standard' measurement, the rest of us see as mostly a random collection of measures based on fairly arbitrary things. Hogsheads, firkins, furlongs, leagues, cubits, gills, rods, and other random old school things really make no sense to most of us. The dick-length of the 3rd Earl of Canterbury is kind of a stupid measure (ok, it's not a real o
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Granted, I grew up during the transition to metric ... so my height and weight is feet and pounds, but pretty much everything is metric.
Are you a 70s baby early 80s child?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsW0FuDMiH4 [youtube.com]
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Yeah, because gallons per furlong is a useful measurement.
What you call 'standard' measurement, the rest of us see as mostly a random collection of measures based on fairly arbitrary things. Hogsheads, firkins, furlongs, leagues, cubits, gills, rods, and other random old school things really make no sense to most of us. The dick-length of the 3rd Earl of Canterbury is kind of a stupid measure (ok, it's not a real one, but it's not that far off the mark).
Granted, I grew up during the transition to metric ... so my height and weight is feet and pounds, but pretty much everything is metric.
The old rubber ruler trick.
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Well, according to this [onlineunitconversion.com], 1 football field is 0.4545445 furlongs, or 1 furlong is 2.2000044 football fields.
Happy? :-P
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Well, according to this [onlineunitconversion.com], 1 football field is 0.4545445 furlongs, or 1 furlong is 2.2000044 football fields.
Happy? :-P
How am i supposed to remember such an arbitrary number, you shoud use standard units like the rest of the world.
:)
1 furlong [international] = 2 football field [Canada]
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http://xkcd.com/526/ [xkcd.com]
amen!
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Not far at all. The cubit is the length of an ancient Egyptian man's forearm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubit [wikipedia.org]
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understanding, of course, that metric is "mostly a random collection of measures based on fairly arbitrary things" just because these things are one ten millionth the distance from Peoria to Timbuktu (equator to north pole through Paris? whatever, exactly as arbitrary) doesn't make them any less arbitrary.
like 0 degrees to 100 degrees for water from freezing to boiling, at a certain temperature and pressure... they're no less arbitrary than the definition of degree ferenheit
The only thing going for it is t
Decimal points in US measurements??? WTF? (Score:2)
that's also no big deal because you can always use a decimal point in the US standard system too
But... but... WHY??? I mean, what's so remarkable about 528 feet or 1.2 inches?
Tell me, quickly, how much is a millionth of a mile? No, don't use a computer, tell it from your gut feeling, how big is a millionth of a mile?
You know what? The quickest way to get a feeling for an order of magnitude like that is converting to metric. One mile is 1609 meters, therefore a millionth of that is 1.6 millimeter, which translates roughly to about 1/16".
Now do that calculation through the usual miles -> feet -> i
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When was the last time someone said "that washer must be three millionths of a mile thick"?
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that's also no big deal because you can always use a decimal point in the US standard system too
"Understanding" indeed. Here's the difference:
1000cm = 1m
1000" = 83.333'
1 litre water = 1Kg
1 gal water = 8.35lb
Metric is consistent and easy to work with, imperial is the exact opposite.
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Yeah, because gallons per furlong is a useful measurement.
What you call 'standard' measurement, the rest of us see as mostly a random collection of measures based on fairly arbitrary things. Hogsheads, firkins, furlongs, leagues, cubits, gills, rods, and other random old school things really make no sense to most of us. The dick-length of the 3rd Earl of Canterbury is kind of a stupid measure (ok, it's not a real one, but it's not that far off the mark).
Granted, I grew up during the transition to metric ... so my height and weight is feet and pounds, but pretty much everything is metric.
The meter is supposed to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole but the measurement was later determined to be off. 1 Kg is almost the mass of 1 liter of water at STP so again the SI measurement is based on an error. The mol was determined by the number of atoms in 12g of carbon 12, that is completely arbitrary. Arguing that using 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the north pole is some how better then dick-length of the 3rd Earl of Canterbury is nonsense as they
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The mole is the number of atoms contained in the mass in grams of the average atomic mass of any substance. Hardly arbitrary.
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Marvel (Score:1)
i would just like to point out (Score:1)