Researchers have created heart monitoring sensors that conform to the skin, are comfortable, and can be worn while people are moving. With performance comparable to sensors already on the market, the new technology can be made using existing manufacturing processes.

Femtosecond nonlinear frequency conversion underpins classical and quantum photonics but typically requires synchronized mode-locked lasers and complex enhancement cavities. We demonstrate a fundamentally different approach by mode-locking nonlinear frequency conversion through dissipative quadratic soliton physics. This paradigm shift extends soliton-based technologies to diverse cavity platforms and previously inaccessible wavelengths, enabling new opportunities in precision metrology, quantum information science, field control, and ultrafast spectroscopy.

Imagine ordering a truffle dish in a fancy restaurant, and you might picture pricey gourmet mushrooms from France or Italy. But today, one of the world’s largest producers of some of the most prized truffles, known as Périgord truffles, isn’t in the northern hemisphere at all — it’s Australia. New findings suggest that part of the reason for their bountiful harvests may be because truffle fungi have fewer microbial competitors in Australia's soils compared with Europe’s.

In a new study published in the journal Ecosphere, researchers from Northern Arizona University found that when water temperatures increase, microbes and aquatic insects process fallen leaves, twigs and bark more rapidly, but a smaller fraction of that leaf litter supports their growth and a bigger fraction is released into the water and air as carbon dioxide.