World's Most Powerful Optical Microscope 163
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.'"
So intercellular activity can be recorded? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Re:The "b eyond the theoretical limits" thing (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the theory is correct, but they aren't doing a direct observation... they are covering the target with little spheres that are in direct contact and then observing the light that comes out of the little spheres- no rules about our understanding of diffraction limits are broken.
Use UV light and shift back up afterwards? (Score:4, Interesting)
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?