luminescence
loo-muh-NESS-ens
Definition
The emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat, often used in scientific dating techniques to determine when minerals were last exposed to sunlight.
Etymology
The word is derived from the Latin 'lumen' (light) and the suffix '-escent' (beginning to be), combined to describe the process of producing light.
In the news
The article mentions optically stimulated luminescence as one of the specialized dating methods used by researchers to determine the age of the sediment and bone fragments found in the Norwegian cave.
In a Norwegian cave in 2025, scientists found 75,000-year-old bones of polar bears, walruses, and bowhead whales — and the remains of a species of lemming now extinct in Europe that had never been found in Scandinavia before
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com