Engineers have managed to create the world's fastest 2D camera in a lab in UCLA. The one you're looking at is not that camera. But the one they've made is so fast it can image 36.7 million fully 2D frames every second. And it's not just for snapping pics. It could very well revolutionize the way we screen for cancer.

The camera is set up of part microscope, and it uses a process known as STEAM (serial time encoded amplified microscopy), a system which uses laser light to create images and it has a shutter speed of 27 picoseconds, meaning it can take up to 36.7 million frames per second.

The camera is currently being used to analyze cells, and as a stream of cells pass under its field of view at 9mph, it can be used to analyze 100,000 of the things every second.

One good thing about it to add, is that the camera can image millions of cells and then later on analyze them to spot abnormalities. Which means, in medical applications, it can be used to possibly detect incredibly rare cancer cells in blood, with a record low false positive rate of one in a million.

[PNAS via PopSci]