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Health & Science3h 16m ago

Researchers at Harvard SEAS have developed a pico-calorimeter that can detect metabolic heat signals on the order of 100 picowatts in living cells, enabling direct measurement of heat from cells.

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Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Who
Researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS); Joost Vlassak; Juanjuan Zheng
What
Researchers at Harvard SEAS have developed a pico-calorimeter that can detect metabolic heat signals on the order of 100 picowatts in living cells, enabling direct measurement of heat from cells.
When
Wed, 17 Jun 2026 04:49:00 GMT · 3h 16m ago
Where
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences ·
Why
Living cells give off tiny amounts of heat that offer information about what the cells are doing, but these signals were traditionally impossible to measure directly due to their minuscule size.
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How this affects you

This new pico-calorimeter can track the metabolism of small populations of bacteria in real time and monitor how bacterial growth changes in response to different antibiotics, potentially improving the detection of antibiotic resistance and aiding in conditions like sepsis by providing faster diagnostic results.

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3 events in this thread
  1. Health & Science3h 16m ago
    A new pico-calorimeter device, developed by Harvard researchers, can detect metabolic heat signals on the order of 100 picowatts in living cells, making it the most sensitive comparable bio-calorimeter to date.
    Open article
  2. Currently Reading3h 16m ago
    Researchers at Harvard SEAS have developed a pico-calorimeter that can detect metabolic heat signals on the order of 100 picowatts in living cells, enabling direct measurement of heat from cells.
  3. Health & Science3h 16m ago
    Researchers at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a pico-calorimeter that can detect metabolic heat signals on the order of 100 picowatts in living cells.
    Open article

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