After re-analysing the plates, Dr Jain and Dr Singh concluded that they may have found axions that exist so fleetingly that they are not noticed by the modern electronic methodsof particle detection that have replaced the use of photographic plates.
With the suitably mysterious name of "Project 1640, " the new instrument is the first of its kind that's able to directly spot planets orbiting distant suns -- as opposed to existing systems that use indirect detectionmethods to determine the orbit of exoplanets.
The methods they used to avoid detection were straight out of a crime novel - they wrote cryptic notes using numbers and letters and spoke in code on the phone.
In a paper in the Journal of Immunological Methods, Wendy Dittmer of Philips claims to have achieved a 100, 000-fold increase in detection speed by hurrying magnetically tagged molecules of parathyroid hormone towards the spin valve with an electromagnet instead of allowing them to diffuse there.
Both methods can be applied to a broad selection of objects, making them ideal candidates for anti-counterfeit detection for everything from diamonds to passports -- all that's needed to verify authenticity is an optical microscope.