Progress in scinece often linked to better ways of seeing: Stronger telescopes bring more stars into view, microscopes made bacteria vivid, new genomic techniques tease out once-hidden forms of life.
Now a group of MIT engineers has created a new microscope that can generate close to real-time images of processes at nearly the atomic level. For human observers, microscopic worlds that had appeared static suddenly leap into motion.
“When the microscope was invented, you could only take snapshots of what’s happening,” says Iman Bozchalooi, a postdoctoral associate and lead engineer of the microscope. “Until video capability, you couldn’t see that bacteria could swim or how or why they do it.” Just as video allowed scientists to see bacteria in motion, this new microscope will give them a similarly dynamic perspective on chemical and biological processes that up until now have been only glimpsed.
To read more, click here.