RIDE a wave on the beach and the distance you go will tell you something about your mass. But get a living cell to surf a laser beam, and you’ll learn something altogether different: how healthy the cell is.
The scientists who have discovered this bizarre effect don’t yet know why it works – just that it can distinguish with considerable accuracy between cancer cells, virally infected cells and healthy cells. The technique, dubbed optophoresis, has already won backing from the US government. The company behind the idea, Genoptix of San Diego in California, has been given $750,000 in funding by the Pentagon’s research arm, DARPA,…
