Microscopy
Technique shows how drops, bubbles stick to surfaces
February 20, 2013 7:41 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsUnderstanding exactly how droplets and bubbles stick to surfaces is a 100-year-old problem that has eluded experimental answers. Furthermore, it's a question with implications for everything from how to improve power plant efficiency to how to reduce fogging on windshields. Now, thanks to the help of a team from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a scanning electron microscope, this longstanding problem has finally been licked.
Team creates MRI for the nanoscale
February 14, 2013 11:59 am | News | CommentsMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reveals details of living tissues, diseased organs and tumors inside the body without x-rays or surgery. What if the same technology could peer down to the level of atoms? Physicists in New York and Germany have worked together to make this type of nanoscale MRI possible. To do this, researchers used the tiny imperfections in diamond crystals known as nitrogen-vacancy centers.
Spider skin image takes top prize in FEI’s nanoscale image contest
February 13, 2013 5:20 pm | News | CommentsMicroscope manufacturer FEI Company this week announced that Maria Carbajo from the Universidad de Extemadura, Spain, is the winner of the FEI Image Contest for her “Spider Skin” image. The image was obtained using an FEI Quanta DualBeam scanning electron microscope.
Protein “filmed” while unfolding at atomic resolution
February 11, 2013 10:55 am | News | CommentsUsing nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and low temperatures, researchers have now succeeded for the first time in "filming" the complex process of protein folding. The process, visualized at atomic resolution, reveals how a protein progressively "loses its shape." The findings may help to gain deeper insights into how proteins assume their spatial structure and why intermediate forms of certain proteins misfold in the event of illness.
Old imaging technique improves nanoscale X-ray microscopy
February 11, 2013 9:13 am | News | CommentsResearchers in Europe have recently developed an analysis method that allows objects to be imaged using X-rays or visible light with high accuracy despite fluctuations in wavelength or vibrations. Their method is based on a technique called ptychography, which was invented in the 1960s for microscopy using electrons and has further been developed during recent years to be a reliable high-resolution microscopy technique applicable with X-rays and visible light.
Visualizing biological networks in 4D
February 11, 2013 8:42 am | News | CommentsEvery great structure depends on specific mechanical properties to remain strong and reliable. Rigidity is of particular importance for maintaining the robust functionality of everything from colossal edifices to the tiniest of nanoscale structures. In biological nanostructures it has been difficult to measure this stiffness, which is essential to their properties and functions. But scientists at the California Institute of Technology have recently developed techniques for visualizing the behavior of biological nanostructures in both space and time, allowing them to directly measure stiffness and map its variation throughout the network.
Peering into living cells without dye or fluorophore
February 8, 2013 11:31 am | News | CommentsTwo scientists in Switzerland have developed a device that can create 3D images of living cells and track their reaction to various stimuli without the use of contrast dyes or fluorophores. Using their combination of holographic microscopy and computation image processing, 3D images of living cells can be obtained in just a few minutes at a resolution of less than 100 nm.
Nitrogen from pollution, natural sources causes growth of toxic algae
February 8, 2013 7:56 am | News | CommentsResearchers recently found that nitrogen entering the ocean—whether through natural processes or pollution—boosts the growth and toxicity of a group of phytoplankton that can cause the human illness “amnesic shellfish poisoning”. Commonly found in marine waters off the North American West Coast, these diatoms produce a potent toxin called domoic acid. When these phytoplankton grow rapidly into massive blooms, high concentrations of domoic acid put human health at risk if it accumulates in shellfish.
"Zombie" replica cells may outperform live ones as catalysts, conductors
February 7, 2013 9:11 am | News | Comments“Zombie” mammalian cells that may function better after they die have been created by researchers at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of New Mexico (UNM). The simple technique coats a cell with a silica solution to form a near-perfect replica of its structure. The process may simplify a wide variety of commercial fabrication processes from the nano- to macroscale.
When the cell’s two genomes collide
February 6, 2013 12:17 pm | News | CommentsPlant and animal cells contain two genomes: one in the nucleus and one in the mitochondria. When mutations occur in each, they can become incompatible, leading to disease. To increase understanding of such illnesses, scientists at Brown University and Indiana University have traced one example in fruit flies down to the individual errant nucleotides and the mechanism by which the flies become sick.
Scientists probe human cells with high-frequency sound
February 4, 2013 8:29 am | News | CommentsSound waves are widely used in medical imaging, such as when doctors take an ultrasound of a developing fetus. Now scientists have developed a way to use sound to probe tissue on a much tinier scale. Researchers deployed high-frequency sound waves to test the stiffness and viscosity of the nuclei of individual human cells. The probe could eventually help answer questions such as how cells adhere to medical implants and why healthy cells turn cancerous.
Three-photon microscopy improves biological imaging
January 22, 2013 7:58 am | by Anne Ju, Cornell University | News | CommentsScientists may be a step closer to cracking one of the world's most compelling mysteries: the impossible complexity of the brain and its billions of neurons. Cornell University researchers have demonstrated a new way of taking high-resolution, 3D images of the brain's inner workings through a three-fold improvement in the depth limits of multiphoton microscopy, a fluorescence-based imaging technique with Cornell roots.
Nanolens microscopes can detect viruses at nanoscale
January 21, 2013 7:35 am | News | CommentsBy using tiny liquid lenses that self-assemble around microscopic objects, a team from University of California, Los Angeles has created an optical microscopy method that allows users to directly see objects more than 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
Quantitative magneto-mechanical made possible by the Barkhausen Effect
January 17, 2013 9:45 pm | News | CommentsThe Barkhausen Effect is the noise in the magnetic output of a ferromagnet when the magnetizing force applied to it is changed. Almost 100 years after its initial discovery, a team of scientists in Alberta have harnessed this effect as a new kind of high-resolution microscopy for the insides of magnetic materials.
Technique reveals dynamics of telomere DNA structure
January 17, 2013 4:41 pm | News | CommentsBiomedical researchers studying aging and cancer are intensely interested in telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. In a new study, scientists at UC Santa Cruz used a novel technique to reveal structural and mechanical properties of telomeres that could help guide the development of new anti-cancer drugs.
New key to organism complexity identified
January 17, 2013 1:25 pm | News | CommentsLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley researchers have discovered that the transcription factor protein TFIID co-exists in two distinct structural states, a key to genetic expression and TFIID’s ability to initiate the process by which DNA is copied into RNA.
Researchers demonstrate “intelligent molecule” concept
January 15, 2013 10:37 am | News | CommentsIntelligence is not only a matter of humans and animals. Scientists speak also of intelligent molecules. The latter directly react to external stimuli and reversibly change their shape in response. Physicists in Europe have recently demonstrated this process for the first time with a single molecule.
Pill-sized device provides rapid, detailed imaging of esophagus
January 14, 2013 1:47 pm | News | CommentsPhysicians may soon have a better alternative to endoscopy for screening patients for Barrett's esophagus, a precancerous condition usually caused by chronic exposure to stomach acid. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an imaging system enclosed in a capsule about the size of a multivitamin pill that creates detailed, microscopic images of the esophageal wall.
Virus caught in the act of infecting a cell
January 13, 2013 9:06 pm | News | CommentsThe detailed changes in the structure of a virus as it infects an E. coli bacterium have been observed for the first time, report researchers in Texas. The researchers show that when searching for its prey, the virus briefly extends—like feelers—one or two of six ultra-thin fibers it normally keeps folded at the base of its head.
A nanoscale window to the biological world
December 21, 2012 8:24 am | by Ken Kingery, Virginia Tech | News | CommentsInvestigators at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute have invented a way to directly image biological structures at their most fundamental level and in their natural habitats. Their newly developed in situ molecular microscopy provides a gateway to imaging dynamic systems in structural biology
High Content Microscopy System
December 18, 2012 9:16 am | Product Releases | CommentsNikon Instruments Inc. has introduced a new High Content microscope system which pairs the Ti inverted microscope with NIS Elements HC software to provide a dedicated interface for high content acquisition and analysis routines, built on an integrated database for seamless data management and processing.
Olympus picks winners of 2012 BioScapes imaging competition
December 17, 2012 9:26 am | News | CommentsThe judges dove Down Under to select an Australian video of freshwater rotifers as First Prize winner in the 2012 Olympus BioScapes Digital Imaging Competition. Ralph Grimm, a teacher from Jimboomba, Australia, captured the fascinating 58-second video showing the super-fast movements of tiny animals whose hair-like cilia beat constantly to sweep food into their mouths.
Seeing color at the nanoscale
December 7, 2012 8:09 am | News | CommentsIf nanoscience were television, we'd be in the 1950s. Although scientists can make and manipulate nanoscale objects with increasingly awesome control, they are limited to black-and-white imagery for examining those objects. Information about nanoscale chemistry and interactions with light—the atomic-microscopy equivalent to color—is tantalizingly out of reach to all but the most persistent researchers. But that may all change with the introduction of a new microscopy tool that delivers exquisite chemical details with a resolution once thought impossible.
Glowing fish shed light on metabolism
December 3, 2012 11:48 am | News | CommentsEmerging from a panel of 2,400 medications and drug-like compounds tested in a tiny zebrafish, a compound has been pinpointed by researchers who say it regulates whole-body metabolism and appears to protect obese mice from signs of metabolic disorders. The discovery may help drug discovery efforts to help help the rising population of Americans adults at risk for diabetes and other metabolic disorders.
Scientists image the molecular structure of polymer blends
November 28, 2012 11:34 am | News | CommentsUsing an enhanced form of "chemical microscopy" developed at NIST, researchers there have shown that they can peer into the structure of blended polymers, resolving details of the molecular arrangement at sub-micrometer levels. The capability has important implications for the design of industrially important polymers like the polyethylene blends used to repair aging waterlines.
