Featured in many sci-fi stories as a quicker, more efficient way to record and transfer information, barcodes are both extremely commonplace today, and still amazingly poorly understood by many.

The first modern barcode was scanned 50 years ago this summer—on a 10-pack of chewing gum in a grocery store in Troy, Ohio. Fifty is ancient for most technologies, but barcodes are still going strong.

Barcodes work based on light reflected back to scanner optics: black does not reflect light, while the white (blank) spaces do reflect light. Because characters (alphabetic, numeric, special) are ...

(The Conversation) — Few objects in the world are more immediately recognizable than the barcode. After all, barcodes are all around us — more than 6 billion are scanned every single day. They’re on ...

This software is called Cluster-Based analysis of CpG methylation (CluBCpG)." As one validation, the researchers used CluBCpG to analyze WGBS datasets from two types of human immune cells, B cells and ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The first modern barcode was scanned 50 years ago this summer – on a 10-pack of chewing gum in a grocery store in Troy, Ohio.

If you’re serious about barcodes, U.K. developer Peninsula Group has just what you need: Barcode X, which allows you to create industry standard barcodes for integration with labels and other artwork.

Editor’s note: The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers. CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news ...