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An Electron Microscope For Your Home? 125
CuteSteveJobs writes "Could microscopy be in for a new golden age? Wired previewed the desktop-sized Hitachi TM-1000 Electron Microscope a while back. Light microscopes can magnify up to 400X (1,000X at lower quality) — just enough to see bacteria as shapes — but this one offers 20X to 10,000X, giving some amazing pictures. Unlike traditional electron microscopes, this one plugs into a domestic power socket and specimens don't need any special preparation; it's point-and-shoot, much like your typical digital camera. So easy a grade-schooler could use it, and earlier this year that's what happened: The kids at Iwanuma Elementary School in Miyagi, Japan got their own electron microscope. At $60,000, you'll have to give up on the BMW, but the hope is with economy of scale (so far 1,000 have sold) and miniaturization, the price will continue to drop. The only bad news? It runs XP."
Not all that bad! (Score:5, Funny)
Otherwise, an interesting development.
Re:Indeed amazing pictures (Score:5, Funny)
No, I believe Vista's EULA limits magnification to 3000X.
Re:Indeed amazing pictures (Score:5, Funny)
About it running on XP, cheer up it could have been Vista...
The drawback is that once MSFT folks drop their XP support, you will have to be extra careful when microscoping viruses (and very small wooden horses).
Re:Not all that bad! (Score:3, Funny)
Yo dawg, we heard you likes viruses, so we put a virus on your microscope, so you can get phished while you observe viruses though your microscope, dawg.
thr real question (Score:2, Funny)
The real question is:
Is it easy enough that a caveman can do it?
For that much money (Score:0, Funny)
You would think it would do colour.
Comment removed (Score:2, Funny)
Looking forward to fine print from hell (Score:3, Funny)
Re:For Your Home? (Score:1, Funny)
You'd have to sputter coat your penis in gold to image it by SEM - perfectly fine for an Austin Powers villain, granted.
Re:Using XP is not that bad... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Using XP is not that bad... (Score:3, Funny)
I get pretty upset at work when people save freaking .BMP files onto FLOPPY disks from oscilloscopes. Two formats that should be dead dead dead by now. PNG please!