Qubit Systems Inc.

Resting metabolic rate -- the rate at which the body burns energy at complete rest -- is one of the most clinically useful parameters in nutrition and weight management research. It determines the baseline caloric requirement that everything else is built on.

Unfortunately, RMR is most often estimated rather than measured. Population-average equations such as Harris-Benedict or Mifflin-St Jeor predict resting metabolic rate from height, weight, age, and gender, and are useful population-level tools. However, the inherent variation in such predictions mean they have limited value when investigating the energy expenditure of a specific individual.

Direct measurement of resting metabolic rate requires that O2 consumption is monitored using an O2 analyser while the subject is fully immobile. Qubit’s VOCO system, with its breath-by-breath O2 and CO2 analysers, provides an affordable alternative to hood, BodyPod and metabolic room systems for monitoring VO2. And, as our intrepid kayaker shows, it can be used to measure VO2, VCO2 and Respiratory Exchange Ratio while engaging in a wide range of activities indoors and out.

If you'd like to discuss VOCO in a clinical nutrition or weight management context, or for cardiopulmonary exercise testing, we’d be glad to hear from you.

Learn more about VOCO at https://www.voco-cpx.com/

In a terrestrial plant, CO2 diffuses through stomata into the leaf mesophyll relatively freely, limited mainly by stomatal conductance. In an aquatic plant or alga, CO2 must first dissolve into water and then diffuse across the boundary layer surrounding the organism -- a process governed by very different physical constraints. Diffusion rates in water are orders of magnitude lower than in air. The pH of the water affects carbon availability. Temperature affects both dissolved gas concentrations and metabolic rate.

Measuring photosynthesis and respiration in aquatic plants and algae requires instrumentation designed for the specific chemistry of aquatic systems -- dissolved O2 measurement, the measurement of dissolved CO2, and careful consideration of flow rates and boundary layer effects.

Qubit’s analyser for the measurement of dissolved O2, gas phase and dissolved CO2, and accessory pumps, flow meters, pH sensors and aquatic control systems can be configured for precise measurements in the aquatic environment. If your photosynthesis research is conducted underwater, we’d enjoy the conversation.

August is a busy month for field biologists using Qubit equipment.

In the northern hemisphere, they are measuring gas exchange under the forest canopy. They are on reefs monitoring coral metabolism while the water temperatures is close to its peak. They are in agricultural fields tracking the photosynthetic performance of crops under heat stress. They are in alpine meadows, Arctic tundra, and coastal wetlands, collecting seasonal data.

Field experiments conducted in July and August in the northern hemisphere capture organisms responding to climatic extremes that can increase metabolic rate and potentially disrupt physiological processes due to heat stress and drought that appear to be increasing year by year. Consequently, data collected during these months are often the most interesting, and disturbing, of the year.

Such data can be difficult to collect. Field conditions in August are not always forgiving for the researcher or the instruments they use. Instruments that perform flawlessly on a laboratory bench may not behave the same way at 35°C in full sunlight with fine particulate matter in the air from the local forest fire. Which is why we design our field instruments to work reliably under extreme conditions.

If you’re in the field this month, stay safe, use sunscreen, drink plenty of water, and save pouring the beer for when you are poring over data at your leisure.

World Elephant Day seems an appropriate occasion to revisit one of the more unusual measurement challenges we have been asked to address.

The question, put to us some years ago by a researcher was whether or not Qubit’s gas analysis systems could be used to measure CO2 and O2 exchange in an elephant.

The answer was yes.

The follow-up question was whether or not we could measure gas exchange from the mouth and the trunk separately.

We could do that too.

The reason, for those wondering, relates to the fact that elephants are obligate nasal breathers under normal conditions but can switch to oral breathing under exertion. The contribution of each pathway to total gas exchange is not important if you are trying to understand the energetics of the world& #39;s largest land animal.

On World Elephant Day, we trumpet the achievements of elephantologists and the salute the animals patient enough to participate in their experiments.

Our O2 and CO2 analyser can be configured for large animal respirometry in the lab and the field. If you have an experimental challenge large or small, we’d be glad to help you out.

Leave out Twice as much carbon… underfoot. Go straight to the second line.

The flux of CO2 between soil and atmosphere -- driven by microbial respiration, root activity, and the decomposition of organic matter -- is one of the largest and most variable components of the global carbon cycle. It is also one of the most difficult to measure accurately, because soil is not a uniform substrate. Spatial variability is high, temporal variability is high, and the act of measurement itself can disturb the system being monitored.

Our Q-Box SR1LP Soil Respiration Package measures CO2 flux in situ, with a soil chamber placed directly over the ground surface, and sensor stability designed to offset the variability of field conditions. If you wish to take a soil sample back to the lab for respiration measurements, the SR1LP can be used in an open flow gas exchange system.

For flexibility of applications, the SR1LP and related Q-Boxes are unique, cost-effective systems. If you’re a soil scientist interesting in carbon fluxes, we’d be glad to talk.

Visit for more information https://qubitsystems.com/products/q-box-sr1lp-soil-respiration

The International Coral Reef Symposium in Auckland last month was a welcome reminder for us that coral reef science is being pursued with considerable urgency and rigour.

We were particularly pleased to see two poster presentations, one by Alexandra Zelaya and second by Ellyn Darke from the UNCW Coral Reef Lab featuring data collected using our CISME system. Both posters addressed thermal stress and resilience in juvenile coral outplants of Pseudodiploria clivosa in the Florida Keys. They examined the effects of thermal preconditioning of juvenile coral outplants on the performance under natural heat waves conditions.

In both cases, CISME provided in situ measurements of net photosynthesis and dark respiration rates directly on the reef, the kind of data that cannot be collected meaningfully in a laboratory setting and that gives researchers a physiologically grounded picture of how coral outplants are actually performing under real-world conditions.

Our congratulations to the full UNCW Coral Reef Lab team on the work. Coral restoration research of this quality, conducted in the field under natural conditions, is exactly what the science needs.

Qubit’s Head of R&D, Billie Kearns, represented Qubit at ICRS 2026 in Auckland. If you were at the symposium and want to continue a conversation about CISME, we’d be glad to hear from you.

A Break from Conferences… And Now Let’s Talk.

Qubit Systems in the lab, in the field, always.

As we enter a conference hiatus, conversations that started over coffee in Lausanne and Florence are now turning into collaborations, enquiries, and the challenge designing customised solutions for those researchers whose application demand creativity.

Qubit’s conference crew won’t be on the road for a month or two, which makes it a good time to be in the lab, in the field, and in conversation with researchers who trust us with their experimental plans.

If you have any questions about how we can assist you in any aspect of biological research or teaching please feel free to ask without obligation. If we can help we will. If we can’t we’ll suggest others who can.

July has taken Qubit to Lausanne, Florence, Ottawa, and Auckland.

August brings a quieter stretch of the conference calendar, which is a good time to be in the lab, in the field, or in conversation with researchers who have questions that have been sitting on the back burner since the spring.

If you've been meaning to get in touch about an instrumentation challenge, whether it’s a respirometry setup that isn't quite working, a gas exchange measurement that needs to be more field-deployable, or a CPX testing protocol that needs to travel, August is a perfectly good time to have that conversation.

We'll be here.

World Brain Day, observed annually on July 22nd, focuses attention on neurological health, a field that intersects with exercise physiology in ways that are increasingly well-documented.

The relationship between aerobic fitness and brain health is one of the more robustly supported findings in exercise science. VO2 max correlates with cognitive performance, neuroplasticity, and long-term neurological resilience in ways that researchers are still working to fully characterise. The mechanism involves cerebral blood flow, BDNF expression, and a cascade of physiological adaptations that begin, fundamentally, with how efficiently the body uses oxygen.

Which brings us back, as it often does, to the importance of measuring VO2 accurately rather than estimating it.

VOCO measures oxygen consumption and CO2 production directly, breath by breath, during any activity. If the brain benefits from aerobic fitness, the starting point for understanding that benefit is a measurement you can trust.

Heat domes are no longer rare weather events, they're becoming one of the defining biological challenges of our time.

When we think about extreme heat, it's easy to focus on the forecast. Less obvious are the cascading effects on human physiology, insects, wildlife, crops and coral reefs, and the critical role that accurate biological measurements play in understanding those impacts.

In our latest article, Qubit CEO Dr. Steve Hunt explores the science behind heat stress, highlights research from leading scientists around the world, and discusses how advances in physiological measurement are helping researchers better understand, and respond to, a warming planet.

Read the full article on our website now: https://qubitsystems.com/heat-dome-effects-biology-environment/