MRI can be an invaluable aid to diagnosis A technique using the
fuel which powers the space shuttle could make a form of medical
scan much more sensitive. The University of York developers say
it has the potential to help doctors make a faster and more
accurate diagnosis for many medical conditions. It may also
increase the range of conditions that can be studied using
magnetic resonance imaging, they say. Writing in Science, they
describe how they boosted MRI sensitivity by manipulating the
fuel parahydrogen. The technique increased the sensitivity of
the scans by 1,000 times, and hugely speeded up the process of
taking a scan, potentially reducing the cost of the procedure
too. It would take the standard method 100 hours to obtain the
same amount of information the new technique generates in one
second. The technique works by interacting parahydrogen with a
specially designed molecular field to create molecules that can
be very easily detected by MRI scans. Standard MRI scanners
usually work by measuring in