Using X-ray Radiography To Reveal Ancient Insects

1shooter writes "Researchers in France are using a synchrotron as a giant X-ray machine to peer into the insides of opaque amber to reveal insects dating from the age of dinosaurs. 'The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, produces an intense, high-energy light that can pierce just about any material, revealing its inner structure... From more than 600 blocks, they have identified nearly 360 fossil animals: wasps, flies, ants, spiders.' The process reveals detailed 3D images that can be used to make near-perfect enlarged scale models of the bugs using a 'plastic printer.'"

Comments

Re:How many furlongs is that?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>why the need for a synchrotron?

Resolution. Details are shown at the micron level.

Yours for $3.99 + S&H

[EmbeddedJanitor]

http://www.stupid.com/stat/XRAY.html

Re:How many furlongs is that?

[sokoban]

What I'm wondering is, why the need for a synchrotron? Why not just any old X-ray machine? It seems from the video that the technique they're using needs collimated and coherent light. It seems that they are measuring the change in coherence based on the light being shined through the sample in order to calculate density differences and show structure. They're not doing diffraction measurements here, and the samples don't look like they're large enough to require the intensity generated by a SLS.

Re:Today must be redundant day today.

[H0D_G]

Actually, intense and high energy are not necessarily the same thing, especially in terms of radiation. intense means that the number of photons over an incident area is high, whilst high energy means that the photons are from the higher frequency end of the X-ray spectrum.

Re:How many furlongs is that?

[H0D_G]

The technique is similar to in line holography, in that the resultant image (a phase-contrast X-ray image)is constructed from the phase information of the light, as distinct from the intensity. phase contrast imaging is good for 'squishy' structures as it only needs a very small shift in refractive index to influence the phase, meaning that structures similar in density (ie, that would look similar on a conventional X-ray) can be produced.

Re:Next generation of machines

[Btarlinian]

Having the use of the SLC linac certainly made life easier for LCLS, but XFEL is being built on completely virgin ground. If (and it's more of an "if" than a lot of people want to admit) LCLS works, then the demand for X-FELs will be *huge*. There are rumours of a second being planned at SLAC, and one in the UK. These machines are very very cool, and stunningly useful for many other fields of research. I'd bet they won't be able to build these machines fast enough to satisfy demand!

I've never heard of that before, (specifically the second one at SLAC, would it use electron beams from the existing linac or a new one?). The only thing I've heard of is that there are talks of possibly turning PEP-II into a extremely low emittance synchrotron radiation source,a la PETRA, since there's basically not going to be any more accelerator based particle physics at SLAC. Are there really questions as to whether the LCLS will work (i.e., meet its stated design parameters), or do they center more around its actual utility?

It's true that accelerator science has been driven by HEP, but most accelerator physicists (like me) will admit that their market is changing, and our future customers will be biologists and chemists, not physicists. I hope so, because it's a really amazing field, but I don't see much of a demand for advances in the field from chemistry/biology/applied physicists. As far as I can tell there isn't much of a point to building synchrotrons of an energy higher than 9-10 GeV. Even greater brightness isn't of much use anymore, at least in X-ray crystallography (according to the people I have talked to, IANAC(rystallographer)). The only thing that can really seems to be of use now is lowering emittance, which is not as monumental of a technical challenge as perfecting higher frequency klystrons, etc.

I've never heard the story about XFEL being hampered by length. Do you mean the German one, or were you referring to LCLS?

I was referring to the German one. I heard a story at SLAC from a presenter from DESY in which he said that there were a bunch of bureaucratic hassles with the linac for the XFEL since it extended into another county. (He wasn't actually working on the project though, and didn't say that it ended up causing any specific problems.) I think the main issue is the sheer cost of building something like that, according to the XFEL's website, construction costs 968 million Euros. That's only construction costs. At current (Google) exchange rates, that's about $1.5 billion and I don't think there are many countries willing to shell out that kind of money. On the other hand, the newest light source under design, NSLS-II, will cost a total of about $750-900 million (there are conflicting reports) and that's including the little R & D they need to do. For a more current example, DIAMOND, the new UK synchrotron, cost only 260 million pounds plus 160 million pounds for additional beamlines for a total 835 million dollars. New light sources such as 4GLS in Britain, an ERL and FEL combination of sorts, have been cancelled. I really don't think they are going to be that many new XFELs. At the very least I doublt they will become anywhere as common as synchrotron radiation sources, of which there at least 4 in the US with large user groups (APS, ALS, SSRL, NSLS).