Exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than our own Sun, and identifying them is one of the most significant challenges of present-day space exploration. We know of an ever-growing number of exoplanets, including some in the so-called ‘goldilocks zone’ at a distance from their star where life could potentially survive. But identifying exoplanets in […]
Fixed and portable gas detectors serve the same purpose, just in slightly different formats, so the choice of which to use is often not decided by the gas you want to detect. Instead, it can be a combination of environmental factors and practical considerations about the conditions under which the gas detector will be used. […]
A newly developed ‘sniff-cam’ offers a potential way to ‘see’ common diseases using optical filters and RGB imaging. Fibre optic biochemical gas sensor camera The miniature camera functions as a fibre optic biochemical gas sensor, with a construction that emits UV light and detects the fluorescence it receives back from gaseous samples. In particular, the […]
Nanophotonics is creating new ways to filter light, including at the infrared end of the spectrum used for thermal imaging. A team from the University of Texas at Arlington are working with the US Army Research Laboratory on such devices, with an aim to use them for thermal imaging and resonant filtering. What are Nanophotonic […]
Fluorescence spectroscopy uses the fluorescence properties of different sample materials to identify them, making it an effective method to spot different drugs, chemicals and metabolites. It works by detecting the wavelength of energy emitted by fluorescent samples when their electrons are excited and then return to the ground state. Because some energy is lost in […]
Last month we reported how researchers are combining indocyanine green fluorescence with near infrared imaging to provide faster, more detailed imaging of blood flow in ischemic stroke patients. In a separate piece of research published in Optica, the journal of the Optical Society, a team from DTU Fotonik in Denmark has also identified a method […]
The Stroke Association is urging everyone to Make May Purple for Stroke by wearing purple clothes, cooking purple foods, donating to stroke charities and raising awareness, as part of a month-long drive to improve early stroke detection and patient outcomes. But it is the other side of the colour wheel that can be most helpful […]
