Cryptography goes quantum

Darkfrog submitted, created time 4 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

Break out your nitpicking hats, Neal Stephenson fans. Quantum cryptography just got closer to practical.

According to this article in Nature, the code would work not by confusing or foiling those who attempt to break it, but by the idea that any third observer (the first two being the sender and the recipient) would disrupt the message, rendering it unreadable.

The new development is that a team of research have managed to quantum-mechanically connect rubidium ions instead of photons, making the message more robust and giving the message a longer range.

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Google launches free patient records

sea-maid submitted, created time 7 months 4 days (www.bmj.com)

The search engine giant has launched Google Health, a free service for patients offering a personal electronic medical record, but the move has prompted fears over the security of health information stored in this way.

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Doctors unprepared to protect themselves from violent patients

sea-maid submitted, created time 7 months 5 days (careers.bmj.com)

One in three doctors is attacked at work every year, yet few of these will have been trained on how to handle the situation. General practitioners, doctors working in accident and emergency departments, psychiatrists, and doctors in training are the most at risk.

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Researchers use mouse urine to construct artificial noses

Darkfrog submitted, created time 7 months 3 weeks (www.nature.com)

No, it's not left over from the vivarium. They selected mouse urine because of its high concentration of good-sized proteins. The artificial noses, as they're called, may eventually be used to detect drugs and explosives.

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