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The analyst firm identifies data collection, customer profile unification, integrations and segmentation as among the key features of a CDP By Rachel Smith Published: 04 Aug 2025 Customer data platforms (CDPs) first gained popularity among marketing users as the technology tackled the marketing function’s complex customer data management challenges. These challenges included centralising data collection and unifying customer data from disparate sources into profiles that could then be segmented and activated across the marketing technology (martech) ecosystem. Gartner defines CDPs as software applications that support marketing and customer experience use cases by unifying a company’s customer data from marketing and other channels. Customer data platforms optimise the timing and targeting of messages, offers and customer engagement activities, and enable the analysis of individual-level customer behaviour over time. The customer data platform purchasing process involves multiple stakeholders. According to a 2025 survey of business buyers by Gartner, the average number of groups providing funding for CDP purchases is five, with two to three groups typically contributing to the requirements and objectives. CDPs orchestrate a variety of business applications and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, enabling businesses to enhance and better coordinate go-to-market (GTM) execution – for example, unified commercial motions for business-to-business (B2B) and customer journey orchestration for business-to-consumer (B2C) business. Since their inception, CDPs have garnered significant adoption, with 68% of respondents to a 2024 Gartner survey of marketing analytics and technology indicating their organisation has a CDP, and another 18% responding that they are in the process of deploying one. Pulling together data The purpose of a customer data platform is to centralise data collection and unify customer data from disparate sources into profiles. CDPs enable analysts and data engineers to perform data management tasks that support higher-order business processes, primarily marketing, but increasingly cross-CRM functions, as well as finance and product management. A CDP has the potential to provide significant value to marketing and adjacent functions, unifying customer data and enabling business users to activate rich data and insights across channels, devices and enterprise data applications by governing the bidirectional flow of data between the front office and back office. However, while it is not a substitute for enterprise master data management, a CDP can ensure that customer profile data, transactional events and analytic attributes are available to marketing and other customer-facing functions for coordinating interactions. Enterprise software with CDP capabilities There is a significant divide in the CDP market between enterprise application providers (EAPs), particularly those in CRM or ERP, that offer CDPs as part of a platform approach, and providers with more standalone offerings. Chief marketing officers (CMOs) must make the strategic decision between choosing a platform provider versus a standalone CDP offering. Gartner has identified a number of critical capabilities that a CDP needs to provide. These include data collection, customer profile unification, integrations, segmentation, experimentation, and data science and privacy, among others. Data collection is the process of ingesting (extracting) first-party, individual-level customer data from multiple sources and formats, both online and offline. Some CDPs may offer software development kits and/or tags/pixels to facilitate data collection and serve as a central point of ingestion for data processing. Data should persist for as long as needed for processing, and is typically left unchanged in its original source. This includes both anonymous and known first-party identifiers, behaviours and attributes. Along with data collection, a CDP should also provide the ability to connect to and exchange data, instructions or segments with other tools, programs, apps and channels to enable marketing channel execution. This may include integrations to cross-functional tools supporting customer experience (CX). Data interoperability with cloud data warehouses and lakehouse designs are emerging differentiating features of CDPs. Data collaboration is identified by Gartner as another feature of a CDP, which offers productised access to second and/or third-party commercial datasets, such as demographic, intent, firmographic or technographic data. Advanced capabilities may include a named partnership with a data clean room or the ability to access it within the CDP environment. Customer profile unification is where the CDP consolidates profiles at the person level – sometimes at the household level – and connects attributes to identities. This must include linking multiple devices to a single individual, once that person has been identified, and deduplicating customer records. The process for identity resolution varies. Solutions may use deterministic matching and/or probabilistic identity graphs, and may have additional partnerships with third-party identity resolution providers to further advance this capability.  Segmentation enables marketers to create and manage segments or audiences. Basic offerings support rule-based segment creation, often with out-of-the-box predictive models, while advanced offerings support dynamic segmentation, leveraging real-time data to move individual customer profiles in and out of segments as their actions meet previously defined criteria. Advanced features may also include automated segment discovery and the use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and/or large language models (LLMs).  A CDP also needs to provide performance analysis for various levels of customer data, such as at the attribute level, profile level or segment level, often with out-of-the-box dashboards and templates for reports. Offerings may include data monitoring and data quality assessments. Experimentation and data science basic offerings include testing, such as A/B or multivariate tests, to monitor and self-optimise the customer experience based on the winning campaign segment. Advanced offerings may include additional features, such as real-time experimentation and the ability to import and manage ML models within the CDP using R or Python. They may include integrations with data science or LLM solutions, and provide the ability to carry out granular configuration of scoring and prediction. Adoption outside marketing Demand for CDPs rose out of marketing’s need to address complex customer data management challenges without long wait times for IT ticket resolutions, but the scope of this technology has expanded significantly. CDP providers began to add more personalisation, customer journey orchestration and predictive capabilities to differentiate in a busy market. Since then, there has been further differentiation through innovations in data sharing, AI model development and LLM-based functionality. So,

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On a sunny afternoon in May, 2015, I joined a dozen other surgeons at a downtown Boston office building to begin sixteen hours of mandatory computer training. We sat in three rows, each of us parked behind a desktop computer. In one month, our daily routines would come to depend upon mastery of Epic, the new medical software system on the screens in front of us. The upgrade from our home-built software would cost the hospital system where we worked, Partners HealthCare, a staggering $1.6 billion, but it aimed to keep us technologically up to date. More than ninety per cent of American hospitals have been computerized during the past decade, and more than half of Americans have their health information in the Epic system. Seventy thousand employees of Partners HealthCare—spread across twelve hospitals and hundreds of clinics in New England—were going to have to adopt the new software. I was in the first wave of implementation, along with eighteen thousand other doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab techs, administrators, and the like. The surgeons at the training session ranged in age from thirty to seventy, I estimated—about sixty per cent male, and one hundred per cent irritated at having to be there instead of seeing patients. Our trainer looked younger than any of us, maybe a few years out of college, with an early-Justin Bieber wave cut, a blue button-down shirt, and chinos. Gazing out at his sullen audience, he seemed unperturbed. I learned during the next few sessions that each instructor had developed his or her own way of dealing with the hostile rabble. One was encouraging and parental, another unsmiling and efficient. Justin Bieber took the driver’s-ed approach: You don’t want to be here; I don’t want to be here; let’s just make the best of it. I did fine with the initial exercises, like looking up patients’ names and emergency contacts. When it came to viewing test results, though, things got complicated. There was a column of thirteen tabs on the left side of my screen, crowded with nearly identical terms: “chart review,” “results review,” “review flowsheet.” We hadn’t even started learning how to enter information, and the fields revealed by each tab came with their own tools and nuances. But I wasn’t worried. I’d spent my life absorbing changes in computer technology, and I knew that if I pushed through the learning curve I’d eventually be doing some pretty cool things. In 1978, when I was an eighth grader in Ohio, I built my own four-kilobyte computer from a mail-order kit, learned to program in BASIC, and was soon playing the arcade game Pong on our black-and-white television set. The next year, I got a an Apple II computer and eventually became the first kid in my school to turn in a computer-printed essay (and, shortly thereafter, the first to ask for an extension “because the computer ate my homework”). As my Epic training began, I expected my patience to be rewarded in the same way. My hospital had, over the years, computerized many records and processes, but the new system would give us one platform for doing almost everything health professionals needed—recording and communicating our medical observations, sending prescriptions to a patient’s pharmacy, ordering tests and scans, viewing results, scheduling surgery, sending insurance bills. With Epic, paper lab-order slips, vital-signs charts, and hospital-ward records would disappear. We’d be greener, faster, better. But three years later I’ve come to feel that a system that promised to increase my mastery over my work has, instead, increased my work’s mastery over me. I’m not the only one. A 2016 study found that physicians spent about two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face to face with a patient—whatever the brand of medical software. In the examination room, physicians devoted half of their patient time facing the screen to do electronic tasks. And these tasks were spilling over after hours. The University of Wisconsin found that the average workday for its family physicians had grown to eleven and a half hours. The result has been epidemic levels of burnout among clinicians. Forty per cent screen positive for depression, and seven per cent report suicidal thinking—almost double the rate of the general working population. Something’s gone terribly wrong. Doctors are among the most technology-avid people in society; computerization has simplified tasks in many industries. Yet somehow we’ve reached a point where people in the medical profession actively, viscerally, volubly hate their computers. On May 30, 2015, the Phase One Go-Live began. My hospital and clinics reduced the number of admissions and appointment slots for two weeks while the staff navigated the new system. For another two weeks, my department doubled the time allocated for appointments and procedures in order to accommodate our learning curve. This, I discovered, was the real reason the upgrade cost $1.6 billion. The software costs were under a hundred million dollars. The bulk of the expenses came from lost patient revenues and all the tech-support personnel and other people needed during the implementation phase. In the first five weeks, the I.T. folks logged twenty-seven thousand help-desk tickets—three for every two users. Most were basic how-to questions; a few involved major technical glitches. Printing problems abounded. Many patient medications and instructions hadn’t transferred accurately from our old system. My hospital had to hire hundreds of moonlighting residents and pharmacists to double-check the medication list for every patient while technicians worked to fix the data-transfer problem. Many of the angriest complaints, however, were due to problems rooted in what Sumit Rana, a senior vice-president at Epic, called “the Revenge of the Ancillaries.” In building a given function—say, an order form for a brain MRI—the design choices were more political than technical: administrative staff and doctors had different views about what should be included. The doctors were used to having all the votes. But Epic had arranged meetings to try to adjudicate these differences. Now the staff had a say (and sometimes the doctors didn’t even show),

Understanding media performance in digital marketing is like navigating a maze that constantly changes. The emergence of platforms like TikTok has revolutionized how brands connect with their audience, adding layers of complexity and opportunity. However, with regulatory changes such as GDPR and iOS 14.5 updates, eCommerce brands are now facing a growing challenge: gaining clear visibility into the performance of their media mix channels.  Top of Funnel Marketing  Top-of-funnel marketing is about more than just creating buzz; it’s about laying a sustainable foundation for growth. Imagine it as the first chapter of an engaging novel, where the story begins, intrigue is created, and the relationship with the reader—or in this case, the customer—starts to form.   Historically, due to the difficulty in tracking and measuring the impact of these top-of-funnel activities, brands have gravitated towards bottom-of-funnel advertising, where results are more tangible, like direct sales and conversions. However, this approach often overlooks a critical aspect of customer acquisition and brand building.   According to a Fospha report, brands that consistently invest in top-of-funnel activities for a minimum of 10 months are likely to see reduced customer acquisition costs and a more robust Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Specifically, the report reveals that brands prioritizing long-term brand awareness strategies can improve their ROAS by 42% and decrease acquisition costs by 35%, in comparison to brands that concentrate exclusively on conversion-focused activities.  The Challenges of Current Measurement Practices  The digital advertising landscape has evolved significantly over the past five years, growing more complex and demanding advanced measurement techniques.   Traditional pixel- and cookie-based methods, which have been the mainstay of most brands, are losing their effectiveness due to regulatory changes like GDPR, CCPA, and iOS 14.5, which prioritise consumer privacy over technological efficacy. This has led to a significant reduction in visibility, especially in the early stages of the customer journey. Consequently, marketing attribution models that do not account for top-of-funnel activities may overestimate the effectiveness of lower-funnel activities.  On Monday 8 Jan 2024, TikTok introduced Fospha as one of the measurement partners. This partnership represents a significant development in the intricate world of digital marketing, highlighting the importance of not solely relying on bottom-of-funnel metrics for brands aiming to achieve sustainable growth and broad market reach.  Fospha’s solution empowers brands to measure their paid media spend across platforms like TikTok in a data-driven way that aligns with profitability. This means that brands can now gain insights into the impact of their top-of-funnel activities, optimize their strategies accordingly, and scale their efforts without sacrificing their bottom line.  Case Study  Let’s take a closer look at The Essence Vault, a fragrance brand that faced the common dilemma of digital expansion. By embracing TikTok’s dynamic platform and partnering with Fospha, they saw a 20% increase in revenue and a 7% improvement in ROAS, illustrating the power of a data-driven, top-of-funnel approach.  Resources Conclusion  TikTok has exploded in popularity, emerging as a significant alternative ad channel. The platform has shown strong returns, outperforming other growing platforms like YouTube. Top-of-funnel marketing is more than just an initial handshake with potential customers; it’s an indispensable part of a brand’s growth strategy in today’s complex advertising ecosystem. With strategic tools and partnerships like Fospha and TikTok, brands can confidently navigate this landscape, ensuring that every stage of the marketing funnel is optimised for success. As we look towards the future of digital advertising, it’s clear that understanding and leveraging top-of-funnel marketing is not just a strategy, but a necessity for sustainable growth and success.  For further information on this partnership, visit Fospha’s blog and TikTok for Business Blog.  Read More

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Aug. 4, No. 315. CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of “Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the ’70s and ’80s,” as well as “The Totally Sweet ’90s.” She’s been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She’s Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she’ll be first in line. Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won “Headline Writer of the Year”​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism. Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles. Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a bit tricky. Hope you know your car-race details! Read on for hints and the answers. Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.   Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: H-town. Green group hint: Grab your bat. Blue group hint: Young signal-callers. Purple group hint: Racing supporters. Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups Yellow group: Houston teams. Green group: Hitting statistics. Blue group: NFL rookie QBs. Purple group: NASCAR Cup Series sponsors, over time. Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers? The completed NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Aug. 4, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET The yellow words in today’s Connections The theme is Houston teams. The four answers are Astros, Dash, Dynamo and Texans. The green words in today’s Connections The theme is hitting statistics. The four answers are average, home run, RBI and run. The blue words in today’s Connections The theme is NFL rookie QBs. The four answers are Dart, Sanders, Shough and Ward. The purple words in today’s Connections The theme is NASCAR Cup Series sponsors, over time.  The four answers are Monster Energy, Nextel, Sprint and Winston. Read More

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Today’s NYT Connections puzzle could be tough. The blue and purple categories are pretty bizarre, although they’re fun once you see the connections. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers. The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak. Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time Hints for today’s Connections groups Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group. Yellow group hint: Certain invertebrates. Green group hint: Forest inhabitants. Blue group hint: Involves a letter of the alphabet. Purple group hint: Words with a similar sound. Answers for today’s Connections groups Yellow group: Arthropods. Green group: Trees. Blue group: [Letter] (is) for ____. Purple group: Words that sound like two letters. Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words What are today’s Connections answers? The completed NYT Connections puzzle for Aug. 4, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET The yellow words in today’s Connections The theme is arthropods. The four answers are aphid, beetle, mite and tick. The green words in today’s Connections The theme is trees. The four answers are beech, cedar, pine and yew. The blue words in today’s Connections The theme is [letter] (is) for ____. The four answers are apple, cookie, effort and vendetta. The purple words in today’s Connections The theme is words that sound like two letters. The four answers are decay, easy, geo and ziti. Read More

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles. Today’s Mini Crossword was a toughie. I was especially puzzled by 6-Across, which asks, “What puts the “i” in Silicon Valley?” I eventually got it, but it took some thinking. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips. The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page. Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Aug. 4, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET Mini across clues and answers 1A clue: Key above Caps LockAnswer: TAB 4A clue: Biased sports fanAnswer: HOMER 6A clue: What puts the “i” in Silicon Valley?Answer: APPLE 7A clue: Triangular road signAnswer: YIELD 8A clue: Items in a music library, for shortAnswer: CDS Mini down clues and answers 1D clue: Conversation subjectAnswer: TOPIC 2D clue: Pumped upAnswer: AMPED 3D clue: “Silver ___” (Christmas classic)Answer: BELLS 4D clue: Farm fodderAnswer: HAY 5D clue: Like pants in the classic Nantucket styleAnswer: RED Read More

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles. Today’s Wordle puzzle is another tough one, I thought. Even if you guess the right vowel, the consonants aren’t very common letters. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on. Today’s Wordle hints Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now. Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter. Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel, but it’s the repeated letter, so you’ll see it twice. Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter Today’s Wordle answer begins with R. Wordle hint No. 4: Placement The repeated vowel in today’s Wordle answer shows up in the second and fourth spot in the word. Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning Today’s Wordle answer can refer to something that is inflexible and cannot be bent. TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER Today’s Wordle answer is RIGID. Yesterday’s Wordle answer Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Aug. 3, No. 1506 was LUMPY. Recent Wordle answers July 30, No. 1502: ASSAY July 31, No. 1503: FRILL Aug. 1, No. 1504: BANJO Aug. 2, No. 1505: DAUNT Read More

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles. Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a tough one. I had to rack my brain to unscramble a few of the answers. If you need hints and answers, read on. I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.  If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page. Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far Hint for today’s Strands puzzle Today’s Strands theme is: Cutting it close. If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Snip-snip. Clue words to unlock in-game hints Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work: RIPE, CARB, RARE, PATE, PEAT, TAPE, HOPS, SHOP, SHOPS, PACE, SLICE, LICE, CARE Answers for today’s Strands puzzle These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: CAPE, COMB, RAZOR, TRIMMER, CLIPPERS, AFTERSHAVE Today’s Strands spangram The completed NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 4, 2025, #519. NYT/Screenshot by CNET Today’s Strands spangram is BARBERSHOP. To find it, look for the B that’s three letters over and two letters down from the upper left corner, and wind almost straight down. Read More

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. TL;DR: Scientists have long been fascinated by the vibrant colors and intricate structures found in the feathers of birds like the Indian Peafowl (commonly known as the peacock). A new study has shed light on a surprising property of these iconic tail feathers: their ability to act as tiny laser resonators when infused with a common fluorescent dye. The research, conducted by researchers from several US universities and published in Nature, set out to explore the behavior of peacock feather barbules – microscopic structures that help create the bird’s famous shimmering eyespots – when treated with the laser dye rhodamine 6G. The aim was to determine if light emitted from these dyed feathers would reveal insights about the underlying biological structure, and whether the colorful photonic crystals in the feathers themselves might serve as feedback mechanisms to produce laser light. To conduct the experiment, scientists obtained natural peacock feathers, carefully cut them to isolate the eyespot area, and repeatedly wetted and dried specific regions with a solution containing rhodamine 6G. This dye is well-known for its bright fluorescence when exposed to green laser light. Using pulses from a green laser, the team illuminated the prepared feathers and collected the emitted light through a specialized spectrometer system. (a) Illustration of a barbule’s cross section that is repeatedly stained with a dye solution. (b) Experimental setup for detecting emission from a male Indian peafowl tail feather stained with R6g. Initial results showed that simply staining the feathers once was not enough – laser emission only appeared after several cycles of wetting and drying. This suggested that both the dye and solvent must deeply penetrate the barbules and possibly alter the microstructure for the effect to manifest. When the laser was aimed at different parts of the eyespot, whether they appeared blue, green, yellow, or brown, the researchers found sharp, consistent laser emission peaks, especially at wavelengths of 574nm and 583nm. These lines stood out against the broader fluorescence of the dye and appeared in all feather samples and color regions tested, indicating a repeatable and stable effect. Image of a peafowl tail feather’s eyespot surrounded by reflection spectra for four distinct color regions. Each spectrum has two insets, a low-magnification and a high-magnification microscope image of that color region. The researchers analyzed the emission spectra and found that the observed laser behavior didn’t match expectations for so-called random lasers, which usually arise from irregular, highly scattering environments and generate less predictable, variable emission lines. Instead, the peacock feathers produced consistent modes at specific wavelengths, regardless of the local color or structure, prompting the team to conclude that the laser feedback mechanism was not the same as that responsible for the feathers’ iridescent colors. Emission spectra from marked regions (a – f) of the R6g-infused peafowl tail feather. Advanced analysis of the spectral lines suggested that the feedback most likely comes from regular mesoscale structures, which persist throughout the eyespot, within the feather barbules, not from long-range photonic crystal ordering or randomly dispersed scattering paths. The study ruled out alternative explanations such as whispering gallery mode lasers, which would require precise circular cavities not naturally found in peacock feathers. The lasing effect also required relatively high pump intensities close to, or just above, those found in random laser experiments, but the stable and repeatable nature of the emission points to an underlying order in the biological microstructure. The results collectively show that natural polycrystalline or heterogeneous materials, once infused with the right molecules and subjected to appropriate treatment, can reveal hidden regularities through laser emission. Emission spectrum observed while pumping the iridescent blue region of the tail feather. A 4-peak Gaussian fit was used to model the emission spectrum. Although practical applications remain speculative, the findings suggest a new way to probe the internal organization of complex biological materials by measuring their laser emission spectra after dye infusion. Using this technique, it may one day become possible to map or characterize “hidden” structural motifs, or cavities, within feathers and other tissues, opening up opportunities for research in materials science, biophotonics, and bio-inspired laser technologies. For example, Nathan Dawson of Florida Polytechnic University told Ars Technica that the research could help create safe, biocompatible lasers for internal use in the human body in sensing, imaging, and therapy. Read More