Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a smartphone app that can turn Android phones into detectors to capture the light particles created when cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere. [ + ]

Healthcare company CareFusion has been acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) for $58 per share in cash and stock - a total of $12.2 billion. [ + ]

Brisbane researchers have developed a blood test that can accurately detect an allergy to Bahia grass - one of the most common causes of hay fever. [ + ]

A director with research and consulting firm GlobalData has claimed that ultrarapid formulations of the currently marketed rapid-acting insulin analogues have the potential to radically change the insulin market over the next five years. [ + ]

Analytica (ASX:ALT) has secured a CE Mark for its PeriCoach device and has launched an up to $4m capital raising to help fund marketing ahead of its formal launch in Australia. [ + ]

The East Coast Whale Watch Catalogue has collated hundreds of photographs of humpback whales along Australia's east coast - many of which have been taken by citizen scientists. [ + ]

Healthcare company Roche has announced a technology acquisition from AbVitro, a company focused on therapeutic target discovery. Roche obtained exclusive rights to a primer extension-based target enrichment (PETE) technology and associated patent applications filed by AbVitro. [ + ]

The AusBiotech Annual Report 2014 is now available, detailing how AusBiotech is delivering on its plan to facilitate global development of the Australian life sciences industry.

Bionic Vision Australia's (BVA) prototype 24-channel percutaneous connector implant was found to be safe during its first clinical trial in retinosis pigmentosa. [ + ]

AB SCIEX and Illumina have announced the OneOmics project - an exclusive partnership to bring together SWATH-based next-generation proteomics (NGP) and next-generation sequencing (NGS) tools in a cloud computing environment. AB SCIEX has also announced that its Director of Reagent R&D, Dr Subhasish "Babu" Purkayastha, has been awarded the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) Science and Technology Award. [ + ]

The Australian Genome Research Facility and the Garvan Institute of Medical Research have announced a collaboration that will help facilitate Australia's access to whole human genome sequencing.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will have a new chief executive as of January 2015 - international technology innovator Dr Larry Marshall. [ + ]

Dutch biotech MIMETAS has raised $5.2 million to fund its expansion as a global leader in organ-on-a-chip technology. [ + ]

CSL (ASX:CSL) has announced a $210m upgrade of its Melbourne plasma manufacturing plant to add the capacity to produce albumin.

Australian secondary school students have helped reveal strange, jittery behaviour in the pulsar PSR J1717-4054, located around 15,000 light years away in the direction of the constellation of Scorpius, as part of the PULSE@Parkes program. [ + ]