Recently by Jacqueline Hewett

By Jacqueline Hewett

I've spent part of my afternoon today checking out the Optical Society of America's (OSA) new Interactive Science Publishing (ISP) articles. The ISP articles, which appear in OSA journals such as Optics Express, link out to large datasets, such as a CT scan of the human chest.

You can view these images by downloading a special bit of software developed by OSA in cooperation with Kitware and the National Library of Medicine. Give it a go, and see for yourself. You know the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words."

Here's what an enthusiastic Donald Lindberg, the director of the National Library of Medicine, had to say about ISP.

"The ISP concept unleashes a new way of thinking for clinicians and medical researchers in the medical imaging research community," he said. "ISP parallels previous successful initiatives in molecular biology and genomics, where the accepted practice is to publish original data, but it provides the first tools to really integrate three-dimensional datasets from X-ray, MRI, CT, and ultrasound instruments into journal articles. We feel that this technology has tremendous potential for accelerating translation research and thus improving the quality of health care worldwide."

One of the first articles to make use of the new ISP functionality is entitled "Applying anatomical optical coherence tomography (OCT) to quantitative 3D imaging of the lower airway". This paper describes how anatomical OCT can accurately measure the shape, diameter and length of the airways inside the lungs, even as they expand and contract during breathing.

A second publication using the ISP reminded me of a news story I wrote recently on creating a digital embryo. This next paper has the title In vivo spectral domain optical coherence tomography volumetric imaging and spectral Doppler velocimetry of early stage embryonic chicken heart development and as the name suggests the researchers have come up with a new way of measuring blood flow and imaging the structure of the heart in a developing chicken embryo.

By Jacqueline Hewett

I'd just like to say a big thank you to everyone who voted in our online poll. Some 60% of you believe that Barack Obama is the right choice for the global photonics industry, with 20% voting for John McCain and 19% saying that the choice of president will make no difference.

While the percentages in our poll don't quite mirror the overall election results, we're pleased to see that your favourite has now been elected as the next President of the United States.

So, what does the future hold now that Barack Obama has been elected? If would like to add your thoughts, please do so using the "Comments" link at the end of this post. However, maybe the best way to answer the question is to quote the new President-elect himself as he addressed his supports in Chicago.

"America we have come so far. We have seen so much but there is so much more to do. Tonight, let us ask ourselves, if our children should live to see the next century, what change will they see? What progress will we have made? This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time to put our people back to work, and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one; that while we breathe, we hope; and that when faced with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless cry that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can."

By Jacqueline Hewett

The goLITE BLU from Philips

It's always a shock to the system when British Summer Time comes to an end, and certainly I know a few people who really suffer at this time of year. With this in mind, I thought I would post news of Philips' latest innovation: the goLITE BLU, which is claimed to be a natural and convenient way to relieve seasonal mood-related problems.

Philips says in its press release that light therapy has been shown to improve mood and energy levels by regulating our internal body clock or circadian rhythms - the body's 24-hour cycle of activity and sleep related to light.

According to Dan Adams, a research manager at Philips Home Healthcare Solutions, the body clock is stimulated by blue light like that found in the summer sky so when we get less of this light in winter, people start to suffer.

"The goLITE BLU represents significant improvements in portable blue light therapy," says Adams. "Science has shown that to stimulate the body clock we don't need intense white light. This is because a person's body clock can respond up to two times greater to blue light than to white light and white light is 50 times more intense. Our Bluewave technology, which is incorporated into the goLITE BLU, dramatically reduces the overall intensity of light as compared to bright white therapy devices and can help minimize potential side effects such as eyestrain, glare and headaches."

The product measures 5.3 x 5.5 inches and weighs 12 ounces. Philips stresses that the goLITE BLU passes ocular safety testing and all government and industrial ocular safety standards and does not emit any harmful ultraviolet (UV) or near-UV light.

The suggested retail price for the goLITE BLU is $279. I wonder how useful this would be to help my jet-lag when I travel long-haul to the US for conferences such as Photonics West?

By Jacqueline Hewett

I received an e-mail today about a Masters programme called CIMET, which stands for Color in Informatics and Media Technology. As I hadn't heard of this course before, I thought I would write a short post about it to pass on the information.

Four European universities have teamed up to offer the two-year CIMET Masters: the University of Saint-Etienne (France), University of Joensuu (Finland), University of Granada (Spain) and University College Gjovik (Norway). The coursework is said to cover photonics, computer vision and imaging science, and computer science and multimedia technology. There is a mixture of both theoretical and practical work.

CIMET is part of the Erasmus Mundus programme, and has just launched its campaign to recruit students for the 2009-2011 degree. The deadline for non-European students is the end of January 2009, while the deadline for European students in May 2009. There is a lot more information regarding the applications procedure on the course website.

"To qualify for admission, applicants must have a Bachelor degree in computer science, physics or mathematics," explained Hélène Goodsir, CIMET Administrative Coordinator. "18 to 20 Erasmus Mundus grants are available for non-European students. Up to 8 grants will be available to high-level European students. The programme requests high mobility, but it is possible to mainly study in one host university and attend only one semester in another university. All courses will be given in English throughout the consortium."

The CIMET consortium is also able to host academics specialized in the fields of optics, colour, image and media technology. Scholars (PhD minimum) will be expected to contribute to the teaching of one compulsory course or one optional specialization course, under the direction of a permanent teacher at the host institution.

By Jon Cartwright, reporter on physicsworld.com

Hubble is back with a perfect 10 image (Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio)

After a month in "safety mode" following an error on its onboard data formatter, the Hubble is back online and taking photos again.

To evidence its good health, the grand old telescope has produced a "perfect 10" image of the galaxy pair Arp 147. According to a press release, the blue ring of the right galaxy formed its "0" shape when the left galaxy (the "1") passed through. At the moment of impact a circular wave of dense material rippled through the right galaxy, colliding with material moving inwards from the galaxy's gravitational pull. The resultant shockwaves and dense gas stimulated stars to form in a circle.

By Jacqueline Hewett

When a colleague forwarded me on an e-mail this week with the subject line "Lost dog finds way home using fibre laser" it was enough to spark my curiosity. What could lost dogs and fibre lasers possibly have in common? The answer is that fibre lasers are being used to write details on dog identification tags.

It turns out that the press release came from a US company called Laser Photonics, which is partnering with dog identification tag distributors in an effort to help return lost pets to their owners. Laser Photonics produces a line of marking and engraving systems that use either fibre or carbon dioxide lasers to write details on a range of metallic and non-metallic surfaces.

The product in question for the dog-tag application is the FiberTower XP and comes from the company's FiberTower series. According to a company brochure, the FiberTower series is a selection of fibre laser material processing systems for direct parts marking, unique identifier and deep engraving.

The FiberTower XP uses a 20W Q-switched fibre laser and was able to mark both steel and aluminium dog tags at a speed of 10 inches per second. Laser Photonics adds that the samples were marked using a true type font, with a power set at 98% and a repetition rate of 20 kHz.

So there you go, lost dogs do indeed find their way home thanks to fibre lasers. Is there anything the fibre laser can't do.

By Matin Durrani, editor of Physics World magazine

The search is on for Stephen Hawking's successor

Now here's a job that very few scientists can possibly have a chance of securing.

The University of Cambridge is inviting applications for the position of Lucasian professor of mathematics to succeed Stephen Hawking, who is set to retire next year at the age of 67.

According to the 22 October issue of the Cambridge University Reporter, candidates should be "working on mathematics applied to the physical world, with strong preference for the broad area of theoretical physics". The successful candidate is expected to take up the appointment in October next year.

Quite who will get the job is anyone's guess. Previous Lucasian professors include Paul Dirac, George Stokes, Charles Babbage, George Airy and, most famously, the great Isaac Newton himself.

Hawking has certainly made the job, created in 1663 by the then Cambridge member of parliament Henry Lucas, one of the most well-known academic positions in the world.

If you fancy following in Hawking's footsteps as the next - and 19th - Lucasian professor, applying for the job sounds fairly easy. All you need to do is submit a CV, list of papers, details of current and future research plans and details of two referees. The deadline is 15 December.

But be warned - Hawking may be retiring but will still be hanging around as "emeritus Lucasian professor". Stepping out of his shadow won't be easy.

By Jacqueline Hewett

There's just one week to go in the 2008 US presidential campaign as I sit down to write this blog post. It's an exciting time as America decides but this year in a first for optics.org we are also looking for your opinions on what candidate you feel would best serve the optics industry.

If you visit the optics.org homepage, you'll see we are running an online poll asking this very question. And unlike voting in some US states, answering our poll is quick and simple. All you have to do is highlight your answer and click vote. Not a controversial voting form in sight.

Claire Bedrock, publisher of the IOP's Journal of Optics A, attended last week's Frontiers in Optics event in Rochester and was telling me that one of the hot discussions was what will happen to science funding under McCain or Obama. Some Americans predict that under Obama science funding will be channeled into green energy. But what do you think?

Our sister website physicsworld.com has also gone into detail about the stances John McCain and Barack Obama have taken on science in general.

I'm not sure why I love the run-up to the US presidential election so much. Maybe its because I spent some of my childhood living in America, maybe its because The West Wing is one of my favourite TV shows, maybe it's the swing states or maybe its just simply because there is so much suspense.

But whether you love or hate the US presidential election, we are interested to hear how you think the result will affect the optics industry. Please visit our quick poll on the homepage to cast your vote and, if you want, leave a comment on this blog post.

The opening day of this year's Frontiers in Optics (FiO) conference was dominated by a packed morning plenary session where the speakers included NASA's John Mather as well as Anton Zeilinger from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Mather's talk tackled a wide range of issues and was entitled "From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to James Webb Space Telescope" while Zeilinger discussed "Photonic Entanglement and Quantum Information".

In the afternoon, delegates faced a tough decision between the first in a line of Special Symposia versus a range cutting-edge research presentations. The Special Symposium was entitled "Schawlow-Townes Symposium on 50 Years of the Laser".

2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of the classic paper by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes (Infrared and Optical Masers Phys. Rev. 112, 1940) that ushered in the age of the laser. First to speak was Townes himself on the early history and the development of the laser. He was followed by invited presentations delivered by some of today's pioneers in laser science including Nicolaas Bloembergen, Anthony Siegman and Steve Chu.

Four Optical Society (OSA) Student Chapters and Local Sections received awards at Frontiers in Optics (FiO) today.

"Student and local section programs at OSA are thriving," said Elizabeth Rogan, OSA executive director. "Recognizing the outstanding efforts of student researchers, student chapters and local sections serves as an opportunity to highlight examples of research and educational excellence to the wider optics community on both a local and international scale. OSA congratulates all the winners on their achievements."

The 2008 winners of the OSA Excellence Awards are as follows:

Student Chapters

Small Group category (5-15 members): Moscow State University, Russia

Large Group category (16+ members): Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, Ukraine

Local Sections

Small Group category (10-50 members): Long Island Local Section of OSA, USA

Large Group category (51+ members): New England Local Section, USA

This weekend sees the start of the 92nd annual meeting of the Optical Society of America: Frontiers in Optics. With novel optical techniques under development for a range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications, as well as being used to help understand the basis and evolution of disease, medical research plays a key role in this year's conference.

Under the headline theme "Optics in Biology and Medicine", technical sessions include: "Light propagation models for therapy and diagnosis"; "Imaging of mice and men"; "Microscopy for diagnostics"; and "Targeted therapy and molecular imaging".

Here's a selection of some of the research highlights being presented at the conference:

Presentation FTuK5: Modeling reflectance and fluorescence spectra of human pancreatic tissues for cancer diagnostics

At the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), a multidisciplinary research team is investigating the use of optical spectroscopy for early detection of pancreatic cancer during endoscopic diagnostic procedures. Their goal is to help physicians distinguish between cancerous tissue transformations and benign changes due to diseases such as pancreatitis. The investigators used a multimodal approach based on reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy of excised human pancreatic tissues. Subsequent spectral analysis revealed biologically relevant differences between normal tissue, pancreatitis and cancerous samples.

Presentation FTuD3: Optical intraoperative measurement of function in the human brain

Researchers from the University of Southampton in the UK will present details of a camera system that can measure brain function during surgical removal of brain cancers. The scheme uses blood oxygen levels - as measured via absorption techniques - to delineate function in the human brain. Measurements on four people undergoing brain surgery showed that this signal correlates well with the current mapping technique: electrical stimulation of areas of the brain bordering the region to be excised.

Presentation FWW6: Constructing human retinal capillary maps from adaptive optics SLO imaging

A non-invasive technique for mapping blood supply in the retinal capillaries will be described by Stephen Burns from the University of Indiana (Bloomington, IN). The technique uses near-infrared imaging with an adaptive-optics confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope to visualize blood flow within all capillaries of the light-sensitive tissues in the human retina. One key benefit of this method, say the researchers, is that it eliminates the need to inject contrast agents - as required for the fluorescein angiography traditionally used to visualize the retina.

Presentation FTuK1: Understanding light propagation in bone for photodynamic therapy of osteosarcoma

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is used extensively to treat soft-tissue cancers, but applying this technique to bone cancer is more challenging due to the complex propagation of light in bone. To address this, researchers at Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) and Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, OR) have used reflectance spectroscopy to characterize light propagation in bone. Using a fibre-optic system to send and collect light waves through bone, the team analysed the scattering and absorbing properties of different bone tissues. They used the results to guide light delivery within bone for PDT of osteosarcoma in small animals.

Presentation FTuE4: Femtosecond laser-induced microvascular clots trigger Alzheimer's disease pathology

Researchers at Cornell University have used tightly focused femtosecond lasers to introduce clots in the microvasculature in the brains of rodents. They then followed this clotting process, as well as the subsequent changes in the brain, with fluorescence microscopy. The idea is to study the link between altered blood flow and Alzheimer's disease, by enabling scientists to directly look at the effect of clots in the brain's microvasculature on the development of Alzheimer's. While plaque formation in brain tissue is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, clots and haemorrhages in small blood vessels have also been implicated in the disease.

Frontiers in Optics 2008 will be held from October 19-23 at the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, NY. The meeting takes place alongside Laser Science XXIV, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Laser Science.