First-of-its-Kind Hard X-ray Free-Electron Laser Images Intact Viruses 84
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."
Re:intact after X-ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
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)...