Aurora has designed nifty little test tube caddies called NanoPlates to contain such human micro-matter. These screening plates, although not much bigger than a pager, hold 3,456 miniature wells. It's fast, really fast. What now takes four years to develop, will, come year 2000, take four months. Moreover, experiments the size of specks will economize what are frequently valuable and limited supplies of human body stuff.
Chronological age is one thing.
A San Diego company, RealAge Inc., has a Web page designed to answer that question and a business plan designed to turn a profit. Headquartered in the Sorrento Mesa area and run by Charlie Silver, its president, RealAge was founded four years ago as a company that would write health appraisal software for licensing to hospitals and managed care organizations. Realizing the potential of the Internet, the company changed its game plan about two years ago to write a health appraisal program for the Web. Although it takes 30 minutes to answer the questions, the site is easy and fun to use. To date, the company's revenue comes from selling vitamins and other nutritional supplements to those who take the test and request the products.