Science in Action

The proliferation of cheap plastic guns have made recovering sanded-off serial numbers a problem. What works for metal doesn’t for polymers. Raman may have an answer.

Increasing atmospheric CO₂ is causing significant warming of the Earth by changing the heat and water balances between the surface and atmosphere.

In a quiet NYC neighborhood, a frustrated artist created forgeries of America’s Modernistic masters. Raman Spectroscopy did him in.

The chairman told him the news. The Nobel Committee chose Kobilka and his mentor, Robert Lefkowitz, M.D., as the 2012 co-recipients of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

A common accessory - the plastic straw -  is contributing to a type of contaminant affecting our ecosystems, not to mention the human food chain.

Microplastics, microscopic bits of manufactured or decayed plastics, are invading our surroundings. Researchers found it in our seas, drinking water, rainwater - and even table salt.

Mourou’s goal was to develop an ultra-short, high-intensity laser pulse without destroying the equipment used to produce it.

Scientists use nanoparticles in a variety of applications, including medicine, pharmaceuticals, electronics, biomaterials, energy production and consumer products.

“People strive to make devices faster and more energy efficient,” He said. “If we can study the fundamental properties and see if proposed materials would be suitable for these types of applications, it can help people design or make devices.”

Vargas, a Ph.D., is the Lead Scientist for the Analytical and Materials Analysis Laboratories at Birla Carbon. And the Marietta, Georgia-based company’s world revolves around carbon black.

Nuclear fusion is viewed by many as the holy grail of clean, renewable energy.

To most scientists, climate change is real. The challenge is to find more and better energy sources to generate electricity that do not emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Aaron Celestian's research uses Raman and XRF Spectroscopy to discover which minerals to treat toxic waste with and heal our world.

Large vaulted ceilings, old woodwork and stained glass dating back to the early 1900s overpowers you as you walk into the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) faced a challenge. It wanted to conduct photoemission spectroscopy in the extreme low UV range using a tunable light source. It’s a difficult application. No off-the-shelf instruments existed to achieve its goals.

Back at the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department, crime scene investigators processed the tickets with chemicals to make any fingerprints on them visible. 

Watch the interview with Taylor Harvey, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University-Central Texas on Next Generation Photovoltaics

Taylor Harvey, Ph.D., of Texas A&M University-Central Texas, is deep into photovoltaic research.

Inside a small, neat lab, tucked away inside the engineering building at Rutgers University in New Jersey, a researcher is trying to use cheap and renewable sources in order to upgrade them to new useful products and fuels.

The result of Martin’s research could help create abundant, low-cost, clean energy on a global scale.

Igor K. Lednev, Ph.D. is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He has been developing the use of Raman spectroscopy for a variety of forensic applications.

Richard Loomis is trying to make a better solar cell. And he’s taken a road off the beaten path to achieve that goal.

Visualize slicing a rock so thin it’s transparent to the eye. That’s what Eric Ellison must do to study which minerals host life.

Imagine killing cancer cells with oxygen compounds. Then tracking the cancer’s metabolism with near ultraviolet light sources. That’s the potential result of the pioneering work by a team at the University of Nevada-Reno.

Doctors can treat certain types of cancers with non-toxic light-emitting molecules, photosensitizers, and light. This is the essence of Photodynamic therapy, an up and coming treatment model for certain cancers.

Andrew Whitley is an enigma. The classically trained Ph.D. just won the prestigious Charles Mann Award from the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) for his body of work. 

There are a lot of quality characteristics that the winemakers are interested in that relate to the color of the wine and the phenolic content – compounds that affect the wine’s taste, color and mouthfeel.

Alternative light sources used by crime scene investigators help them identify evidence left by suspects at a crime scene.

Elemental Analysis is a process where a sample of a material is analyzed for its elemental and sometimes isotopic composition.

In one case, using an innovation created by SPEX Forensics, a division of HORIBA Instruments, a suspect was subsequently linked by fingerprints to 32 different outstanding felony cases.

This winter, John Priscu plans to drill thousands of feet below the frozen ice of Antarctica and expects to find living creatures. If he’s successful, it could help change the way we see our planet.