How to Use fluoresce in a Sentence

fluoresce

verb
  • The shortest fullertubes don’t fluoresce, but the longer ones show signs of it.
    James R. Riordon, Quanta Magazine, 20 Dec. 2022
  • Corals, too, can fluoresce very prettily in a wide range of hues, and the proteins that cause this are in the same family as GFP.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Could this be why so few amphibians were known to fluoresce?
    Joanna Klein, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2020
  • And at that point, the solution can fluoresce so much that it can be detected.
    Andy Larsen, The Salt Lake Tribune, 9 Aug. 2020
  • The copies are cleverly designed to fluoresce when they’re formed.
    Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 18 Aug. 2020
  • Those echoes will fluoresce in different ways depending on the atoms present in the sample.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Deadly fish known for their spikes and venom may pack a newfound weapon — switchblades on their faces, some of which can fluoresce green, a new study finds.
    Charles Choi, Discover Magazine, 13 Apr. 2018
  • The quinine in tonic water will fluoresce a bright blue, as will the darkest spots on an overripe banana.
    Helen Czerski, WSJ, 24 May 2018
  • The mechanism rests on the fact that this cluster can fluoresce with a spectrum that consists of three colors — a central peak plus two fainter side-peaks.
    The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 30 June 2021
  • Smaller species are more likely to fluoresce than larger ones.
    Smithsonian, 25 July 2019
  • Kayes and company will be taking his lasers underwater in early 2017 to fluoresce the sea life of coral reefs.
    Jon Tennant, Discover Magazine, 20 Dec. 2016
  • Stewart and his colleagues reckon that an amino acid like phenylalanine, which is released from a dead body, could cause leaves to fluoresce in a distinct way.
    Matt Simon, Wired, 3 Sep. 2020
  • Glowing might also play a role in helping the sharks find mates, since males and females fluoresce in different patterns.
    Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 7 Aug. 2023
  • But knowing a tiny amphibian might shine green among leaves that fluoresce red in blue light, could make surveys much easier.
    Joanna Klein, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2020
  • As a control, Rober uses a blacklight to note which spots fluoresced before the students (who didn't know about the experiment) arrived.
    Isabel Garcia, House Beautiful, 26 Mar. 2020
  • In some cases, using a different technique, the cells can also be made to fluoresce under a light source, allowing a researcher with a microscope to watch the brain at work.
    Adam Rogers, Wired, 24 Nov. 2021
  • Almost any body fluid will fluoresce at 454 nanometers, but in this case the fluid is semen—though not from the original crime; that was all removed in swatches for evidence.
    Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 28 July 2017
  • Those instruments measure how rocks fluoresce, absorb and reflect light when they are hit with different lasers.
    Derek Smith, Scientific American, 17 Apr. 2023
  • This caused the structure to fluoresce differently when a laser was trained on it, emitting near-infrared radiation that was picked up by a camera nearby.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 2 Nov. 2016
  • As this glow washes over nearby rocks, the elements within them will fluoresce, letting Pragyaan see their chemical makeup.
    Michael Greshko, National Geographic, 22 July 2019
  • It's long been known that bones fluoresce under ultraviolet light, some researchers have even used the property to find fossils, but our bones are usually all covered up.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 18 Jan. 2018
  • Imagine a softly glowing world, inhabited by a multitude of species that fluoresce in response to their star’s violent outbursts.
    National Geographic, 24 Aug. 2016
  • That distantly related species of amphibians all fluoresced suggests that the trait likely developed early in amphibian evolution and may be quite widespread among the group.
    Joanna Klein, New York Times, 27 Feb. 2020
  • Researchers who survey disappearing populations of amphibians could make use of the trait to spot green-fluorescing salamanders in a jungle.
    Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Mar. 2020
  • Not every chameleon possesses the ability to fluoresce visibly, though.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 18 Jan. 2018
  • This involves introducing into cells genes that produce proteins that fluoresce with a greenish glow, so they and their axons (neurons’ output wires) can be visualized with light microscopy.
    Simon Makin, Scientific American, 30 Mar. 2018
  • His animals are bred to have a special protein in their auditory striatum that fluoresces when certain neurons are activated.
    Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker, 27 Mar. 2023
  • To distinguish between neurons and glia, Herculano-Houzel injected the vials with a chemical dye that would make all nuclei fluoresce blue under ultraviolet light, and then with another dye to make the nuclei of neurons glow red.
    Ferris Jabr, New York Times, 14 Dec. 2017
  • This process works because the collagen in the parchment fluoresces a soft blue color under near-ultraviolet illumination.
    Ken Krebs, Scientific American Blog Network, 7 July 2017
  • In 2015, National Geographic explorer David Gruber found that hawksbill sea turtles fluoresce green and red—the first biofluorescence ever recorded in a reptile.
    Michael Greshko, National Geographic, 5 Dec. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fluoresce.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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