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Optical sensing is one of the most important applications of light science. It plays crucial roles in astronomy, environmental science, industry and medical diagnoses.
Despite the variety of schemes used for optical sensing, they all share the same principle: The quantity to be measured must leave a "fingerprint" on the optical response of the system. The fingerprint can be its transmission, reflection or absorption. The stronger these effects are, the stronger the response of the system.
ITHACA, N.Y. - Gravitational waves, first detected in 2016, offer a new window on the universe, with the potential to tell us about everything from the time following the Big Bang to more recent events in galaxy centers.
And while the billion-dollar Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector watches 24/7 for gravitational waves to pass through the Earth, new research shows those waves leave behind plenty of "memories" that could help detect them even after they've passed.
(Boston) - A study led by physician researchers at Boston Medical Center has shown that first milk expression within eight hours of giving birth is associated with the highest probability of mothers of very low-birth-weight infants being able to provide milk throughout hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit. The study results, published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, help better inform perinatal providers and new mothers how to prioritize the many aspects of perinatal care after delivery of a very low-birth-weight infant.
A new analysis co-led by The Johns Hopkins University identified 25 United States counties that are most likely to experience measles outbreaks in 2019. The analysis combined international air travel volume, non-medical exemptions from childhood vaccinations, population data and reported measles outbreak information.
The analysis will be published on May 9 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
Elite athletes are less likely to take banned substances if they consider the morality of what they are doing, and not just the health consequences of doping, according to a new study led by the University of Birmingham and funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
In the study, conducted in UK, Denmark, and Greece, 1,500 athletes were asked to complete a questionnaire about two hypothetical doping situations. Participants were male and female elite football players, competing just below professional levels.
Researchers at King's College London, in collaboration with Northumbria University, have developed a new way of detecting homemade explosives which will help forensic scientists trace where it came from.
The approach uses ion chromatography - high resolution mass spectrometry, published today in Analytica Chimica Acta. Scientists show that through using this technique, they can detect a very large number of components of homemade explosives down to very low trace amounts.
In a school-based survey study of all students in grades 6, 8, and 10 in Iceland, the use of pain medications was significantly higher among bullied students even when controlling for the amount of pain they felt, as well as age, gender, and socioeconomic status. The findings are published in Acta Paediatrica.
The FRAX® tool takes into account certain factors to determine the risk of bone fracture in the general population. In a Journal of Bone and Mineral Research study, the tool was effective at determining fracture risk for women with breast cancer who were treated with aromatase inhibitors, which cause accelerated bone loss, when combined with bone mineral density measurements.
Chestnut Hill, MA (5/9/2019) - Opposites may attract and drive each other a little crazy, but, together, they can make satisfactory decisions despite their divergent attitudes, according to a Boston College researcher who led a study that explored how selfish and altruistic consumers join in decision making.
Oncologists may soon have an accurate and inexpensive way of differentiating between types of ovarian cancer that will improve how patients are treated, thanks to findings from a national research study co-led out of the University of Alberta.
"One of the issues with ovarian cancer is that we cannot fully decipher between subtypes," said Lynne Postovit, U of A oncology researcher and co-director of the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta. "This is an important problem because the different subtypes should be treated differently."
For over 100 years, scientists have sought to understand what links a person's general intelligence, health and aging. In a new study, a University of Missouri scientist suggests a model where mitochondria, or small energy producing parts of cells, could form the basis of this link. This insight could provide valuable information to researchers studying various genetic and environmental influences and alternative therapies for age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease.
MADISON -- Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are among the most important tools in modern biomedical research, leading to new and promising possibilities in precision medicine. To create them requires transforming a cell of one type, such as skin, into something of a blank slate, so it has the potential to become virtually any other kind of cell in the body, useful for regenerative therapies for everything from heart disease to diabetes.
Potentially life-saving cancer risk assessment tools are being widely underused by general practices across the UK, according to new research.
A team of experts from the University of Exeter's Medical School has designed a set of risk assessment tools - which can predict the likelihood of undiagnosed cancer based on patients' symptoms, test results and other clinical information. Now, new NIHR-funded research has reviewed how well used the tools are within health practices.
A new type of money that allows users to make decisions based on information arriving at different locations and times, and that could also protect against attacks from quantum computers, has been proposed by a researcher at the University of Cambridge.
A study of over 87,000 documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests has revealed a contract mechanism that could allow Coca-Cola to "quash" findings from some of the health research it funds at public universities in the US and Canada.
The study, published today in the Journal of Public Health Policy, identified several clauses in legal documents that give the company early sight of any findings, combined with the right to "terminate without reason" and walk away with the data and intellectual property.