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.'"

Comments

Re:The "b eyond the theoretical limits" thing

[bluefoxlucid]

I have no faith in humanity. If God came down every decade to wander through churches and change water into wine, 80% of the population would attribute it to government dickery or space aliens, or become satanists just to stick it to "The Man (upstairs)." We would still have a lot of new agers talking about how God is Math or Ogma being a dick and frightening people with occasional appearances, even though the lack of a four-faced mask would quickly rule out Math and of course Ogma is never likely to leave his damned library. The other 20% would quickly assume it MUST be God because that's the only explanation for what you can see, rather than some other being that happens to be powerful and shiny just being a jackass, like that bitch that pissed Picard off.