No observable non-thermal effect of microwave radiation on the growth of microtubules.

Despite widespread public interest in the health impact of exposure to microwave radiation, studies of the influence of microwave radiation on biological samples are often inconclusive or contradictory. Here we examine the influence of microwave radiation of frequencies 3.5 GHz, 20 GHz and 29 GHz on the growth of microtubules, which are biological nanotubes that perform diverse functions in eukaryotic cells.

Terahertz frequency-domain sensing combined with quantitative multivariate analysis for pharmaceutical tablet inspection.

Near infrared (NIR) and Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis are established techniques for the identification and quantification of chemical properties of pharmaceutical tablets like the concentration of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). However, these techniques suffer from a high sensitivity to particle size variations and are not ideal for the characterization of physical properties of tablets such as tablet density. In this work, we have explored the feasibility of terahertz frequency-domain spectroscopy, with the advantage of low scattering effects, combined with multivariate analysis to quantify API concentration and tablet density.

Terahertz frequency domain sensing for fast porosity measurement of pharmaceutical tablets.

Porosity is an important property of pharmaceutical tablets since it may affect tablet disintegration, dissolution, and bio-availability. It is, therefore, essential to establish non-destructive, fast, and compact techniques to assess porosity, in situ, during the manufacturing process. In this paper, the terahertz frequency-domain (THz-FD) technique was explored as a fast, non-destructive, and sensitive technique for porosity measurement of pharmaceutical tablets.

High-resolution macromolecular crystallography at the FemtoMAX beamline with time-over-threshold photon detection.

Protein dynamics contribute to protein function on different time scales. Ultrafast X-ray diffraction snapshots can visualize the location and amplitude of atom displacements after perturbation. Since amplitudes of ultrafast motions are small, high-quality X-ray diffraction data is necessary for detection.