First-of-its-Kind Hard X-ray Free-Electron Laser Images Intact Viruses

Zothecula writes "In a paper published in the current edition of Nature, an international team of scientists describe how they obtained the world's first single-shot images of intact viruses – a technology that could ultimately lead to moving video of molecules, viruses and live microbes. Another paper by the same team describes how they were also able to successfully utilize a new shortcut for determining the 3D structures of proteins. Both advances were achieved using the world's first hard X-ray free-electron laser – the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) – which scientists hope could revolutionize the study of life."

Comments

Link

[Monkey-Man2000]

How about a link to the paper?

Re:intact after X-ray?

[jamesh]

Who cares about what happens to them after the burst

While a movie of bursting viruses might be interesting, it won't be as scientifically useful as a movie of a virus that is (mostly) unaffected by having the movie taken of it.

This sort of stuff is like determining where a basketball is by throwing tennis balls at it and seeing where they land. You can only throw a few before the basketball becomes so affected by the tennis balls that you don't know where it is anymore (or how fast it's moving)...

Simple answer: No.

[YuppieScum]

FTFA:

The duration of its individual pulses is incredibly short – a few millionths of a billionth of a second. That’s still long enough to cause its subjects to vaporize , but that doesn’t happen until after their pictures have been snapped.

OK, this was in the second paragraph, but even so...

Re:Simple answer: No.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

That’s still long enough to cause its subjects to vaporize , but that doesn’t happen until after their pictures have been snapped.

So that means that the TSA will not be using hard X-rays . . . um, doesn't it?

Re:Simple answer: No.

[Defenestrar]

You mean "normal" X-rays which is defined as the electromagnetic spectrum between 10 and 10,000 pm? As opposed to the backscatter X-rays which could range anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum between 10 and 10,000 pm? Attenuation (transmission) and backscatter are different techniques for X-ray imaging - but they both still use X-rays. It's like the difference of looking at a stain glass window from the inside or the outside of the church - in both cases it's sunlight that does the illumination.

It does get more complicated when you talk about specific wavelength, intensity, and etc... when you try to measure dosage. But all X-ray methods utilize ionizing radiation which is carcinogenic. Dose may be a very small portion of what you get every day, or in the case of the X-ray laser here, it may be enough to vaporize you.

Re:Worth a Nobelprize

[oodaloop]

No way. This doesn't begin to compare to what Obama did in the first two weeks of his presidency.

Re:Great Title

[mooingyak]

I-just wanted to Hard free-comment on-this-story with intact-hyphens.

"Laser", but not really

[Mt._Honkey]

I am a physicist-in-training (grad student), and when I first heard of "free electron lasers" I was extremely impressed, because getting electrons into a multi-keV energy state that can lase without atoms involved sounded nearly impossible. Turns out it is, because these are not actually "lasers" the sense of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. There is no population inversion as in real lasers.

The name of this specific FEL, the "Linac Coherent Light Source", is a much more correct name. They shoot electrons through a wiggler, and as they wiggle they emit coherent photons. Coherency is they key property of laser light, but the name refers to the method of light creation more than the actual output. I don't know why the x-ray community has felt the need to use this misleading name.

Video from Stanford onn LCLS

[failedlogic]

Here's a video (animation) from Stanford explaining how the LCLC works.

http://lcls.slac.stanford.edu/AnimationViewLCLS.aspx

Re:nothing exciting here

[chudnall]

But that's the best picture they can get of the largest virus known to mankind?

That's just the first part. Then they send it over to the CSI guys and say "enhance!"