Recent posts and comments

• Ikonisys’s Automated Cell Assay System Could Open the Door to New Diagnostic Tests

  Lots of the people I know who went into science and technology journalism did so after spending a year or two working in a lab. Personally, I never experienced what I... Read more »

• UMass Doles out $240,000 to Turn Research Ideas into Commercial Products

  Need a better AIDS drug? Want to turn plants into gasoline without going through that whole millions-of-years-buried-in-the-ground thing? The University of Massachusetts is hoping its researchers have figured out how to... Read more »

• MIT Spinoff Aims to Make Solar Power Cheaper Than Coal

  Solar cells have been around for 30 years, but have never made huge inroads into the energy market because they’ve always been more expensive than other ways of producing electricity. Now... Read more »

• Nanocomp Wins Air Force Grant to Make Carbon-Nanotube Wiring for Aircraft

  You may remember a few weeks back, when Nanocomp Technologies of Concord, NH, announced that it was able to make what it called the world’s largest sheets of carbon nanotubes.... Read more »

• Allied Minds Aims to Forge Early Alliances with University Researchers

  Anybody who reads this blog is familiar with the large number of venture capital companies ready to fund developing businesses, and there always seem to be more climbing aboard in Series... Read more »

• Highland Capital Partners Leads $12 Million Funding Round for CafeMom

  So, yes, I have my Facebook page, my Friendster page, Myspace, LinkedIn, and possibly a couple of others I signed up for and forgot about. One site I’m not on is... Read more »

• EyeGate Pharma Sees a New Way of Delivering Drugs to the Eye

  I have had doctors stick needles in my eyes, so trust me when I tell you this: Not Fun. Eyeball injections are sometimes necessary to get drugs into hard-to-reach parts of... Read more »

• Febit Aims to Automate Genomics Research

  A German company that has come to the Boston area looking for capital and genomics expertise is hoping its technology will help speed up discoveries based on DNA science—leading to new... Read more »

• Web 2.0 Investments Up in 2007 But Likely Close to Peak—New England Second to Silicon Valley

  Turn your attention for a moment from the Bear Stearns debacle to the Web 2.0 world, where the news isn’t quite as depressing, but where investment may be peaking, according to... Read more »

• Nantero’s Carbon-Nanotube-Based Chips Could Outdo Other Types of Computer Memory

  Instant-on computers. Laptops that eat up less battery power. Cell phones that store a selection of movies. Those are the benefits Nantero hopes to bring to consumers by creating a new... Read more »

• Surgical Equipment Maker Salient Files for IPO

  A Dover, NH, company with a new way to seal blood vessels during surgery has filed for an initial public offering. Salient Surgical Technologies submitted the paperwork for an IPO to... Read more »

• Conceived as a Telecom Company, OmniGuide is Now Bringing Laser Scalpels into Endoscopic Surgery

  Yoel Fink started off our phone call by apologizing for being late. He’d been tied up, he said, talking to potential investors as he worked on a Series E round of... Read more »

• Allegro Diagnostics Raises $4 Million in Series A; Funding Will Support Trials of Lung Cancer Test

  A company developing a method for detecting lung cancer earlier, when it’s more treatable, has closed a Series A financing round of $4 million. Allegro Diagnostics, of Boston, raised the money... Read more »

• NoblePeak Collects $12 Million for Night Vision System That Exploits “Nightglow”

  A Wakefield, MA, company that’s developed a new type of night-vision chip hopes to break into the security and surveillance market with a higher resolution camera that can see further into... Read more »

• A123 Thinks Big about Electric Cars from Norway

  Local battery powerhouse A123Systems is delving further into the automotive market, thanks to a three-way deal involving itself, Norwegian electric car company Think, and General Electric. A123 has signed a deal... Read more »

• Boston Companies Grab Headlines at Game Developers Conference

  The Game Developers Conference 2008 attracted video game designers from all over the world to San Francisco this past week to discuss the business and technology of gaming—and no doubt to... Read more »

• New Hampshire Startup Makes World’s Largest Sheets of Carbon Nanotubes

  Ever since scientists first figured out how to make carbon nanotubes—tiny cylinders of carbon with diameters of a few tens of nanometers—they’ve been touted as the material of the future: as... Read more »

• Luminus Deal Brightens Future for LED Lighting

  If you’re not crazy about the compact fluorescent lights being touted as the future of home lighting, but you want something more environmentally conscious than Thomas Edison’s old incandescent bulb, Luminus... Read more »

• Methuen Company’s Motors Power MRI Surgery Robot

  Combine the folks who brought you the giant robot arm on the space shuttle with a company that makes miniature ceramic motors and what do you get? A brain surgery robot... Read more »

• Startup Profile: Harvard Patents in Hand, Nano-Terra is Driving Industrial Applications of Nanotech

  Nano-Terra, a start-up founded by legendary Harvard chemistry professor George Whitesides, might be dealing on the small scale, working with materials measured in nanometers and microns, but the company is... Read more »