Are tattoos safe?

Tattoo inks in Europe are mislabeled and some contain banned ingredients

08-Oct-2024 - If you plan on getting a tattoo, consider this: A new study from Binghamton University, State University of New York looking at green and blue tattoo inks from Europe found that most contained ingredients that are not listed on the label – and some contained ingredients that are outright ...

Research team decodes symbiotic interactions in marine algae using raman spectroscopy

Implications for biotechnology and environmental protection

02-Oct-2024 - In a recent study, researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena have shown how they can non-invasively and non-destructively investigate the growth and interactions of the green alga Ulva and its bacterial community using ...

Pocket-sized invention revolutionizes ability to detect harmful materials

The low-cost cellphone-based Raman spectrometer system can make identifications of unknown biological molecules within minutes

18-Jul-2024 - Imagine knowing what berry or mushroom is safe to eat during a hike or swiftly detecting pathogens in a hospital setting that would traditionally require days to identify. Identification and detection of drugs, chemicals and biological molecules invisible to the human eye can be made possible ...

Gold membrane coaxes secrets out of surfaces

Thousand-fold signal amplification

26-Jun-2024 - Using a special wafer-thin gold membrane, ETH researchers have made it significantly easier to study surfaces. The membrane makes it possible to measure properties of surfaces that are inaccessible to conventional methods. “Surfaces were invented by the devil” - this quote is attributed to the ...

Real-time detection of infectious disease viruses by searching for molecular fingerprinting

POSTECH and UNIST develop breakthrough technology for wide-ranging and ultra-sensitive active nano-spectral sensor, surpassing current limitations

22-Apr-2024 - A research team consisting of Professor Kyoung-Duck Park and Taeyoung Moon and Huitae Joo, PhD candidates, from the Department of Physics at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has engineered “broadband nanogap gold spectroscopic sensor” using a flexible material capable of ...

Novel Raman technique breaks through 50 years of frustration

04-Aug-2023 - Raman spectroscopy — a chemical analysis method that shines monochromatic light onto a sample and records the scattered light that emerges — has caused frustration among biomedical researchers for more than half a century. Due to the heat generated by the light, live proteins are nearly destroyed ...

Tracing invisible particles

Automated analysis of microplastics

28-Jul-2023 - How high are concentrations of microplastics in the environment, in our drinking water or in foods? Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed an automated analysis method for the identification and quantification of particles. Microplastics are everywhere in the ...

Detecting pollutants at ultra-trace levels

Material scientists develop nano-structured and reusable substrate for ultra-sensitive detection of low-concentration analytes - Spin-off planned

29-Mar-2023 - Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (or Spectroscopy), known as SERS, is an advanced analysis method that extends the range of Raman applications to trace analysis such as part per million level detection of a pollutant in water or different liquids. SERS has a high potential to be used in the ...

Capturing nanoplastics in tap water with light

Electro-photonic tweezer captures and detects trace amount of nanoplastics through surface-enhanced Raman scattering

06-Mar-2023 - Nanoplastics are plastics that have been discarded from our daily lives and that enter ecosystems in the size scale below 1 micro-metter after their physical and chemical disintegration. Recent research has shown that the concentration of microplastics in the major rivers in South Korea is the ...

Enhanced arsenic detection in water, food, soil

Sensor can identify the global content and form of arsenic-containing molecules at very low concentrations

02-Mar-2023 - It is a cruel paradox that on a planet with a surface mostly covered by water, hundreds of millions of people don’t have access to clean drinking water. As for the pollution of potable and natural water sources, one of the main culprits is arsenic, an abundant and toxic element in the earth’s ...