Volume 8 - January-March 2010
-
Story 1 - 14/1/2010
The Future of Barcodes
Thanks to barcodes, computers can extract a lot of information on our everyday lives. A new technology by MIT, the Bokode, greatly enhances barcode technology, from interactive shopping to inexpensive motion capture.
-
Story 2 - 25/1/2010
Listen to the Light and See Deeper
Imaging fluorescent proteins in thick biological samples has always been a challenge. Now a new technique has harnessed the opto-acoustic effect in order to make deep tissue imaging easier for biologists.
-
Story 3 - 9/2/2010
A New Instrument for the Laser Orchestra
Laser physics and music share surprising analogies: lasers and flutes, for example, have been tuned in a very similar way until now. Recent experiments show that lasers can also be tuned in a way that does not find a counterpart in music, well not yet at least.
-
Story 4 - 18/2/2010
Is Light Slowing Down?
The speed of light is a universal constant — or is it? Some evidence seems to suggest it might actually be slowing down. Will we soon have to revise our cosmological beliefs?
-
Story 5 - 1/3/2010
The Dark Side of Lasers
Some scientific discoveries completely change how we look at things: it certainly was the case for Dirac’s theory on antimatter or Einstein’s theory of relativity. Now, our existing scientific ideas are set to change once more; new experiments show that laser theory should be extended to include dark pulse emission.
-
Story 6 - 18/3/2010
Forensic Optics: Transforming a Hair into a Travel Log
Solving crimes usually requires a lot of time and complicated investigations in order to find clear evidence. Now, it is possible to obtain information about a suspect's travel history simply by analyzing their hair.
-
Story 7 - 29/3/2010
Tiny Plasmonic Whirlpools
Scientists can twist light to create tiny typhoons on metal surfaces. Particles close to the light swirls can get trapped and pulled to the center of the whirlpool, like an autumn leaf is pulled to the center of a pond whirlpool.
