Getting a Teeny-Tiny Grip

Forget the scalpel, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have created a tool that can move easily through tissue, potentially making biopsies much less invasive. They call it a "microgripper." And the wireless, dust-particle sized device is able to grab single living cells from hard-to-reach places. Their report appeared in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers assembled out of tiny metallic plates a "palm" with six three-jointed "fingers." This metal hand is truly tiny: just one-tenth of a millimeter in diameter. In the lab, scientists used magnets to pilot the microgripper through a tube of animal tissue and up to a living cell. Then, by applying heat as a trigger, the joints softened and the "fingers" closed around the cell.

The researchers hope the device will have applications beyond cell retrieval. It could be used to manufacture microchips or deliver medicine to specific locations in the body. But first, they must refine its motor skills. Right now, the microgripper can only grab—it can’t let go. And we're still years away from shrinking Raquel Welch to go in after it.

—Adam Hinterthuer 

When we think about how to represent sound visually, most of us probably picture those volume-dependent sine waves. But that’s not how John Stuart Reid pictures sound. He’s patented something called a CymaScope. And he’s using it to help us learn more about how animals like dolphins communicate.

The CymaScope contains a thin film of water – basically a membrane. Sound – even at frequencies humans can’t hear – is directed at the water. The water vibrates in response, and a camera records the vibration. The end result is a spherical image of sound patterns.

Reid is working with Jack Kassewitz, a dolphin researcher in Florida. Kassewitz has recordings of dolphins in specific situations – for instance, what he knows to be distress calls from a variety of individual animals. Those calls have been imaged by the CymaScope. Kassewitz also plans to have a number of different dolphins echolocate on a ball. He hopes that’ll give us a visual picture of how dolphins recognize a ball.

It might sound far fetched. But Reid and Kassewitz believe these sound images will provide a library of what we might call dolphin words. Which could one day let us communicate with them with their own vocabulary.

—Cynthia Graber