Pink is the color of the week, thanks to a newly released film that has people dressing in that color while attending it. A wildlife photographer recently captured an image of an unusual sight in the waters off Corpus Christi, Texas. The dolphin he photographed breaching in front of a boat had a pink belly. This phenomenon is apparently caused by vasodilation, a way for the mammals to dump excess heat during summer months in warm waters. Blood near the surface of the skin causes the pink coloration. Everyone's talking about heat these days, as the planet experiences a series of record high temperatures. June 2023 was the hottest June ever, and July 4th was, according to some metrics, the globe's hottest day ever, a record that was overtaken by July 5th and again by July 6th. The old saying is, it's not the heat—it's the humidity. It turns out that it's not just the humidity—it's the dew point that best describes the atmosphere's ability to hold moisture. The dew point is the temperature at which the atmosphere is saturated—where relative humidity reaches 100%. The temperature and relative humidity can fluctuate wildly over the course of a day, particularly in southeast Texas, whereas the dew point is much more consistent. When the dew point exceeds 65 degrees, our bodies can definitely feel the extra moisture in the air. And there's little relief in sight. In the midst of this onslaught of heat, Applied Rigaku Technologies in Austin relocated their offices. The new address is 1405 Arrow Point Drive, Suite 1301, Cedar Park, TX 78613. This month, we present talks from our semiconductor forum, introduce the CQL Max-ID Raman analyzer and celebrate the longevity of Rigaku instruments, as well as providing links to videos, application notes and news items of interest. |