“From lake ecology to biofuels—applications of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to algal research” is the topic of Andrew Dean, Jon Pittman and David  Sigee. Algae are essential for our continued live on Earth, and FT-IR spectroscopy can increase our understanding of their physiology and biotech potential.

Read more: From lake ecology to biofuels—applications of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to algal research

Curtis Marcott, Tadashi Awatani, Jiping Ye, David Gerrard, Michael Lo and Kevin Kjoller give us a “Review of nanoscale infrared spectroscopy applications to energy related materials”. Fuel cells, photovoltaics and specialised polymers for fracking are all considered.

Read more: Review of nanoscale infrared spectroscopy applications to energy related materials

Tony Davies explains “Terahertz Spectroscopy” and describes some new and interesting applications

Read more: Terahertz spectroscopy

In the Quality Matters Column, Peter Jenks wants to clarify “What is a ‘Primary Standard’?”.

Read more: What is a “Primary Standard”?

With continuing food scares around the world, food producers need every tool they can get to prevent contamination of their products at every stage of production. Hyperspectral reflectance imaging in the NIR combined with chemometrics shows much promise for the detection and identification of foreign bodies among food grains.

Read more: Near infrared hyperspectral imaging for foreign body detection and identification in food processing

This article describes an application of spectral imaging for the differentiation of tumour and normal cells. The authors also introduce the concept of a spectral barcode, which has had success with some tissues and has potential in others.

Read more: Novel concepts in infrared spectral imaging as a cancer diagnostic tool

Sotiris Stasinos and Ioannis Zabetakis have used ICP-MS to investigate the cross-contamination of food crops by heavy metals in ground or irrigation water. They show that this can occur easily in certain crops, which has serious health consequences for those consuming the food crop. As a consequence of their work, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been informed about the accumulation of Cr and Ni in food tubers and is taking action.

Read more: The impact of water pollution with chromium and nickel to the food chain

Tony (A.M.C.) continues down the last furlong of his series of Tony Davies Column articles. This issue, he considers principal component analysis (PCA). Using research recently published in the Journal of Near Infrared Spectroscopy, he explains that PCA is a very useful tool but it will not solve all our problems. Two old articles on PCA, including Tony’s concept of the “Data Cake” have been added to the website, are referenced in Tony’s article and can be freely downloaded by readers.

Read more: The last furlong (3). Principal component analysis