Photonics for a Better World

For as much as sensing technology is already enhancing our lives, the future promises even more. Take that smartphone, for example. Currently, it contains several very useful sensors. But, noted Tim Day , CEO/CTO of Daylight Solutions during a session on “The Future of Sensing” at the recent SPIE DSS event in Baltimore , by 2020, it’s easy to envision hundreds of sensors on such a device. Demands for personal fitness monitoring and personalized medicine are big drivers, Day said. Today’s sensors can tell us a lot. For example: How quickly did I go from jog to sprint today compared to yesterday? How close am I to my destination? What is that constellation? But we want to know much more: blood sugar levels, temperature, blood pressure, air quality, and on and on. And we will be able to, via wearables (see Scientific American on that topic) and other technology using photonics. Thermal images captured with Opgal's smartphone attachment can be presented in ...

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has issued a bold call for action related to climate change . With the publication of a report on the subject entitled “What We Know,” the organization delivers an assessment of current climate science and impacts that emphasizes the need to understand and recognize possible high-risk scenarios. But the organization ups the ante. CEO Alan Leshner, in a letter to members 14 May, says that it’s not enough to simply issue another report. Leshner’s letter says it’s time to “change the conversation from whether the earth is warming to just how we are going to work together to alter the course our planet is on.” He calls on scientists to work together to alert the United States and the world to “severe outcomes that could occur through inaction or continued resistance to change.” The report cites polls in which a large minority of Americans still think there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether glob...

Backers of an initiative to raise awareness of the field of photonics and the many contributions photonics technologies and applications make to a stronger economy as well as quality of life have new reason to celebrate. Post the badge on your website to show your support! Last week, the Committee on Science of the the National Science and Technology Council nudged photonics toward the fast track, with the release on Thursday of a report by its Fast-Track Action Committee on Optics and Photonics (FTAC-OP). In a report titled " Building a Brighter Future with Optics and Photonics ,” the FTAC-OP presented a prioritized list of seven recommendations for research opportunities and research-related capabilities. The list aligns with and supports recommendations of the 2013 National Research Council Report Optics and Photonics, Essential Technologies for our Nation , addressing important needs from new methods for stopping disease, to more jobs that strengthen the economy, ...

For 10 years since its founding, the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle has been working toward a greater understanding of the brain, "inspired by the quest to uncover the essence of what makes us human," according to its website. It's a timely quest, given the "big neuroscience" efforts around the world -- including the Human Brain Project in Europe and the BRAIN Initiative in the United States. SPIE Newsroom video interview with Michael Hawrylycz People are working on many fronts to learn about the brain and treat its injuries and disorders. Photonics is a key tool in this effort. A recent SPIE Newsroom visit to the institute resulted in this video interview with Michael Hawrylycz , an investigator and director of the Modeling, Analysis, and Theory Group. If you haven't seen the video, it's worth a look in light of the publication, on the one-year anniversary of President Obama's announcement of the BRAIN Initiative, of two ...

Next week, on 3 April, a new era will begin in remote-sensing-aided disaster response. The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that the Sentinel-1A radar satellite will be launched from the European spaceport in French Guiana. Sentinel-1, the first in the family of Copernicus satellites, will be used to care for many aspects of our environment, from detecting and tracking oil spills and mapping sea ice to monitoring movement in land surfaces and mapping changes in the way land is used. It will also play a crucial role in providing timely information to help respond to natural disasters and assist in emergency response. Photo: ESA/ATG media lab Sentinel-1 is designed for responding rapidly to aid emergencies and disasters such as flooding and earthquakes. The first satellite carries an advanced radar sensor to image Earth’s surface through cloud and rain and regardless of time of day. Each Sentinel mission is based on a constellation of two sat...

What photonics enables the clinician to see: Fig. 2 H&E histology, OCT B-scan images, and three-dimensional (3-D)OCT volume render for (a–c) rectal and (d–f) duodenal biopsies. Bar=0.2  mm. From “Spatially resolved optical and ultrastructural properties of colorectal and pancreatic field carcinogenesis observed by inverse spectroscopic optical coherence tomography,” Journal of Biomedical Optics 19(3), 036013 (Mar 18, 2014). Having a colonoscopy? If you're 50 or older, is there really a question? No question at all -- if you have the means to go in for a colonoscopy, do so. The optics-and-photonics-enabled technology could save your life. So say the results of recent research into the effectiveness of the endoscopic inspection of the colon as a means of detecting and removing cancerous or potentially dangerous growths, reports optics.org on an analysis of clinic data from the American Cancer Society (ACS). In the USA, say ACS authors in the journal CA , colo...

Records are broken, new tricks are introduced, new stars step onto the world stage -- there is a lot of inspiration generated when the Olympic Games are on. Feats of athleticism are being demonstrated that were not imagined to be possible, and possibly not even imagined, as recently as 10 years ago. It’s the same with photonics -- you can decide whether it is as flashy or as exciting as the Olympic Games. But feats are being demonstrated that were not possible until now, by people we may or may not have heard of before. And the results are definitely life-changing, for more than just those who perform them. For example, in separate talks at SPIE Photonics West last month, Michal Lipson of Cornell University and Ashok Krishnamoorthy of Oracle described new tricks with light that could help solve one of the most profound problems facing our increasingly digitally plugged-in world: data storage capacity, or more precisely, the projected lack of it sometime in the next 5 or ...