588242 external_news 1488568222 1488576791 Mass spectrometry is a chemical analysis and detection tool that has been around for 130 years. In that time there have been so many tweaks and improvements that observers have become a bit blasé about the next big leap in its development. But the latest improvement out of the Georgia Institute of Technology may be the biggest yet for the venerable old analytical tool. In research described in Nature Nanotechnology, the Georgia Tech researchers have managed to make mass spectrometry more sensitive than ever before, more portable, cheaper, and even safer...“The sensitivity has been increased to being able to detect down to 100 molecules,” Zhong Lin Wang, adjunct professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said in an email interview with IEEE Spectrum. “This is the highest ever"...Facundo Fernández, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, added: “Our discovery is basically a new and very controlled way of putting charge onto molecules."

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