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World's Most Powerful Optical Microscope
gamricstone writes "Scientists have produced the world's most powerful optical microscope, which could help understand the causes of many viruses and diseases. Previously, the standard optical microscope could only see items around one micrometre — 0.001 millimetres — clearly. But now, by combining an optical microscope with a transparent microsphere, dubbed the 'microsphere nanoscope,' the Manchester researchers can see 20 times smaller — 50 nanometres ((5 x 10-8m) — under normal lights. This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy. 'Seeing inside a cell directly without [it] dying and seeing living viruses directly could revolutionize the way cells are studied and allow us to examine closely viruses and biomedicine for the first time.'"
I didn't know microscopy was such a dangerous line of work...
What the hell? Don't you guys know the IEEE standard scientific notation for writing numbers with a characteristic and a mantissa? 5.0e-08 m
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That confused me.
So is the theory wrong, is the article wrong (yes, I did RTFA), or did they find some clever workaround?
Also, at 50nm, would quantum effects be noticeable? That is, uncertainty?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
This will help make de-fabbing chips much easier, as they'll be able to directly read the circuits on smaller die.
I, for one, can't wait for something like this to make it to the home market.
"Timmy, here's why your nose is runny! See? A rhinovirus! Here, let's take a picture and forward it to your teacher."
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'Seeing inside a cell directly without dying' I'd call that a huge advance, it seems cell biology used to be right up there with kamikaze-piloting for a profession.
What the h*ll is the "cause of a virus"?
Gee thanks, after all those thousands of cpu-hours my machines spent simulating proteins interacting, they can apparently now just look at the damn thing and record the results. Damn you, progress...
Maybe you could, oh I don't know, read the article? Just first posting some dumb question that can easily be answered by taking a second to READ does not make you seem insightful. Of course, it wouldn't take a genius to figure it out without even reading. This new technique is beyond the theoretical limits of standard optical microscopy because it doesn't freaking USE standard optical microscopy. Uh dur.
The new nano-imaging system is based on capturing optical, near-field virtual images, which are free from optical diffraction, and amplifying them using a microsphere, a tiny spherical particle which is further relayed and amplified by a standard optical microscope.
Professor Li, who initiated and led the research in collaboration with academics at the National University and Data Storage Institute of Singapore, believes their research could prove to be an important development.
He said: "This is a world record in terms of how small an optical microscope can go by direct imaging under a light source covering the whole range of optical spectrum.
"Not only have we been able to see items of 50 nanometres, we believe that is just the start and we will be able to see far smaller items.
"Theoretically, there is no limit on how small an object we will be able to see.
However, even with no limits, these scientists would be hard pressed to image your brain.
peek-a-boo!
I can see you
and I know what you do
so put your hands on your face
and cover up your eyes
don't look until i signal
peek-a-boo! peek-a-boo! peek-a-boo!
the way that we weren't is
what we'll become
so please pay attention
while i show you some
of what's about to happen
peek-a-boo!
I know what you do
cause I do it too
laugh if you want to or
say you don't care
if you cannot see it you
think it's not there
it doesn't work that way
mother's baw knows it too
didn't he so do?
I hope they can also reverse the technique and use it for lithography.
Actually, it would seem you fail English via trying to apply mathematical rules to it.
The phrases 'times less than', 'times smaller', 'times fewer' have been in use in the English language for hundreds of years. Swift, Newton, Herschel, Boyle, and Locke all used those phrases at one point or another in their works. Now, generally speaking an argument from authority is not a good argument, but when you're talking about language which is by definition defined by the way it's used I think it is a sound one here. Those examples of usage are from hundreds of years ago, by some of the most educated, intelligent people of their times, I think it is safe to say the phrases were in standard usage then as they are now.
Obviously you can argue that logically or mathematically the phrasing doesn't make sense. The thing about language is that is is neither mathematical nor logical.
The microscopic glass spheres are dropped onto the sample. Then look at the glass spheres with the microscope. A glass sphere acts as a lens and you can focus on the image in it.
Like little magnifying lenses
--
Like putting too much air in a balloon
There's (a bit) more information on the technique here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12612209
"50 nm ought to be enough for anybody."
really, we're back to Rife again?!!!
Next somebody will rediscover the t-bacilli that cause cancer.
And that the Deros live underground, shooting deadly DOR at surface dwellers to give them nightemenmares.
meh. I guess with the sad state of educmacation in this country, we'll see a lot more of these kind of whackjob claims.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Option c: the snippet extracted doesn't tell the whole story.
Specifically, the reason this is "beyond the theoretical limit" is because they
have created a microscope which [beats] the diffraction limit of light ... by combining an optical microscope with a transparent microsphere
This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy." So either the scientists are lying, or the theory is wrong. Which is it? Pons? Fleischmann? Anyone?
The dumbed down version (the only one I understand): light has a "size" of about 200 nanometers, and you wouldn't expect to see detail smaller than that using light. Recently though, people have found a way around that.
This actually isn't the first microscope to break that barrier. There's OMX for one.
I work in a biology lab, and looking directly into a cell is one of my most dangerous tasks. Lesser men have been struck dead by viewing the horrors that lurk beneath the cell membrane. A microscope that lets us look inside a cell without dying would revolutionise biology forever!
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
the GP was just someone karma whoring by trying to be pedantic which, unfortunately, is rewarded too many times here on Slashdot.
Now, considering that he's an AC and doesn't benefit from karma, I guess that makes him a Karma Slut and not a whore - he's not being compensated for it.
From TFA:
"This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy."
"Theoretically, there is no limit on how small an object we will be able to see."
It contradicts itself.
Pictures or it didn't happen.
any access to the pdf?
Lately, I've been hearing complaints about the usage of "times less" pop up quite a few times around here.
First of all, it's a common idiom. Idioms aren't always used in a way that some might find to be mathematically consistant. A bird in the hand is not the mathematical equivalent of two in the bush.
Also, this idiom is actually mathematically consistent in that it clearly suggests a multiplicative inverse (or reciprocal).
Finally, this is a very old usage. It has been documented to have existed for three centuries years. This doesn't mean that the journalist is stupid, unless you also would consider a writer such as Jonathan Swift to be stupid.
oh wait....
"This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy."
So either the scientists are lying, or the theory is wrong. Which is it? Pons? Fleischmann? Anyone?
Its journalist BS. Doesn't mean a hell of a lot. When does journalist BS mean anything?
Way back in 1874 Abbe figured out the theoretical limit of microscope resolution. Far field resolution with positive refractive index materials, that is. Thats all we had back then. Kind of like how the romans probably could have made silicon diodes, if only they had purer silicon...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Abbe
Abbe figured the resolution only depends on the wavelength of the light being viewed and the NA of the lense (numerical aperture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_Aperture
Its kind of like those theoretical thermodynamic limits. Not that its easy to even come close, but conventional physics says this is as far as you could dream of going...
For decades (centuries, really) they fooled with stranger and shorter light wavelengths, and continually optimized the material science of their lenses to get better NAs. Unfortunately they optimized themselves into quite a tight little local minimum. Recently they came up with some pretty far out material science. Also some pretty weird electromagnetics, trying to use nearfield instead of a farfield system.
They "broke all the rules", in journalist speak, much like a music band or a car body designer breaks all the rules, but that doesn't mean they can levitate or glow in the dark or something, it just means they tried something pretty far out. Unlike the car designers and musicians, the result of this foolishness is actually pretty cool and useful.
You could accurately compare near and far field work like conventional vs quantum mechanics in that a lot of what you "expect" from one, does not work in the other.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evanescent_wave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superlens
Pretty much useless theoretical foolishness for a traditional microscope, right? Well it turns out by some trickery you can apply that kind of stuff after all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_resolution_microscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection_fluorescence_microscope
This article is not about a totally new area of science or something, just one particularly well done demonstration / experiment. Its some cool applied engineering, not new theoretical science. And I believe my little /. post is probably better and more informative than any mainstream media story will be about this topic.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
At best that blurb on Science Daily is vague to the point of uselessness.
More likely, the "journalist" is illiterate.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I built and used scanning electron microscopes back in my distant youth. We always referred to microscopes as "light" or "electron" or even "ion" (yes, we built a prototype ion microscope). All of these have optics in the form of lenses and apertures and could correctly be called optical microscopes.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
The summary says, "This is beyond the theoretical limit of optical microscopy". Which theoretical limit? The only theoretical limit that I know is diffraction limit (angular resolution is about wavelength/lens_diameter or lambda/D). But that only applies for objects far off (distance much larger than D^2/lambda. so it is quite accurate for telescopes). There is no direct theoretical limit for microscopes. The semiconductor manufacturing uses near field photolithography for ages where they routinely create features smaller than the diffraction limit.
It was an informative post... try a little less of tooting your own horn at the end there though.
Something I've always wanted to know is why can't scientists throw UV or even xrays on the matter in question and 'transpose' or shift any reflected light back up to the normal visible spectrum? Of course, xrays penetrate objects, but is this 100%, or is a tiny percentage reflected back?
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I was wondering why they mention "normal light". It's not at all a measure of comparison between this new microscope and its predecessors. I figure it's an artifact of something mentioned by the interviewed scientists. The subject of observation can react to abnormal light levels, and may even die, so they cannot just up the light level.
I watched this TED talk here: "http://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_patek_clocks_the_fastest_animals.html" which details a scientist's struggles to see a tiny organism (a mantis shrimp) at high speeds, and she stressed "low light" was important, because too much light would kill it. While in the film business, more light equals better video, the same cannot be applied to biology.
50 nanometres is not the same as 10 metres (5 x 10-8)
According the precedence rules, you should do the multiplication before the subtraction, so 5 x 10 - 8 = 42.
This is not really an extraordinary claim. I once had a debate with a devout disciple of science who claimed that world was governed by science and that all creationist were retarded. He knew this because scientist could SEE electrons orbiting the atoms and stuff. Apparently scientist eyeballs work a lot better than creationists eyeballs, which can only see down to the wavelength of the light they are using to see with. Scientist eyeball can see all the way down to the size of an electron using nothing more that visible light. Now I understand why people mock creationist all the time. It is because they have such bad eyesight.
http://users.navi.net/~rsc/rife1.htm
Royal R. Rife invented an optical microscope which he used to view live viruses and bacteria:
"Royal Raymond Rife was the inventor of the Universal Microscope which he presented to the world in 1933. Besides being the most powerful optical microscope ever made up to that time, it was also the most versatile. The Universal used all types of illumination: polarised, monochromatic or white light, dark field, slit ultra and infra-red. It could be used for all manner of microscopical work, including petrological work or for crystallography and photomicrography. According to a report submitted to the Journal of the Franklin Institute it had a magnification of 60,000x, and a resolution of 31,000x. The ocular of this instrument was binocular, but it also had a detachable segment lower in the body for monocular observation at 1800x (x=power) magnification. "
Will this let us make smaller cpu feature sizes?
So, as someone who hasn't studied optics in at least 6 years, and doesn't plan on picking up a book regarding the matter anytime soon, I have a very naive, and possibly silly question.
Could a similar technique to this be used in reverse to make more powerful telescopes?
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Horn tooting is well deserved.
pics or it didnt happen
In biological microscopy, it is quite difficult and rather new to do stuff in the near field, because the stuff you are interested is usually in an object (cell) which is several wavelengths thick and which needs to be in water to survive. So all your "normal" optics are in the far field, which is why the diffraction limit tends to be considered a theoretical limit.
For the special case of *fluorescence* microscopy, which tends to cover a huge portion of biological imaging at small scales, methods are being developed to get around the diffraction limit even in the far field, see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STED_microscopy. In the NatCommun article, they are proud that their method works even independent of fluorescence, and from what I understand it really just works by bringing the transparent spheres into the near field. This is where my understanding stops, never having worked in the near field... but it seems the sphere provides a magnification which transmits near-field high spatial frequency information into the far field.
The semiconductor fab guys exceeded the "theoretical limit" for photo-lithography years ago. I'm writing this post with a processor with 45nm features and I believe Intel is planning 22nm this year. Not sure how the technique compares to the microscope, but people have been using light for things much "smaller" than light for quite some time now.
Are we still catching up with the past?
http://www.rife.org/
It's better than the slashdot summary, that's for sure.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This is really nothing special.
Move along, nothing to see.
There are plenty of other methods for improving optical resolution, the trade offs in this are barely interesting outside of lithography.
Once again another scientist marginalized, Royal Rife, like Tesla gets no credit.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
do you guys even read the article or do you just read the heading and give start typing bull shit! Optical Microscopy! the link you give is 10 fold better this is 20 fold better.... Ofcourse the limit has been broken by earlier folks using particles other than light, but this gives you, to say in your "dumbed down" version, a full blown hd tv experience!(just a figure of speech)
Just to be clear, viruses are not classified as alive. Sometimes, I'm not convinced that this is entirely correct, but that's what the biologists say.
This increase in resolution to ~50 nanometers is about 4X better than the ~200 nanometers (0.2 micrometers) that (because of diffraction) is the absolute best one can obtain with normal, visible light microscopy, assuming one uses oil and apochromatic objectives. For reference, we used to use the diatom, Amphipleura pellucida, which had 40 striae (lines of holes) in 10 micrometers. If we could see the striae (0.25 micrometers apart), we knew we had an excellent objective. If we could count the striae, we were estatic.
c.f. the near-field scanning optical microscope http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_scanning_optical_microscope
"lateral resolution of 20 nm and vertical resolution of 2–5 nm have been demonstrated."
Beats 50nm by a fair margin, I would have thought.
Funny that this story of a marvelous new imaging tool omits any actual images.
"...could help understand the causes of many viruses"
Has anyone thought to search Yahoo Answers for "How is virruses formed?"
I believe it was the Bible that said: "Thou shall not toot thy horn".
Just sayin'
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
That's what she said
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the link you give is 10 fold better this is 20 fold better
My point was that the light barrier has been broken before by microscopes using light, which it has. I didn't say OMX was better.
She was just being nice. She didn't really mean it.
Sorry.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Sorry peoples, Royal Rife invented a super optical microscope over 80 years ago. A couple of these units still exist. Efforts to revive this technology has met with no success.
Rife used his unit to observe the the destruction of pathogens, including viruses while applying a harmonic frequency to kill the pathogen. It is commonly referred to as "rife technology", see rife.org.
A two disk dvd is available thru ; zerozerotwo.org. It shows a bacteria, seen thru this microscope, being destroyed when the resonating frequency is applied.
I've been using the Rife technology for over four years now and have been more than pleased with the results.
Unfortunately the FDA has a program of elimination of Rife technology.
DUH - this was done in the 1930's and perfected in the 50's by Royal Rife. Rife went on to find ways to kill cancer using various frequencies, found by observing what frequencies killed virus's that cause cancer.