a sharper kind of light

Tiny Red Bud seeds – some infected with weevils.

Toronto. Photography demands light, but so do other optical devices such as light microscopes. The resolution limit of light microscopes has usually been the light itself, forcing a transition to other devices such as an electron microscope if increased resolution is needed. However, the higher resolution can only take place if the subject matter is in a vacuum – not so good for living things.

Down at the U of C in San Diego, Science Daily states, “Engineers have developed a technology that turns a conventional light microscope into what’s called a super-resolution microscope.

“It improves the microscope’s resolution (from 200 nm to 40 nm) so that it can be used to directly observe finer structures and details in living cells.”

I took the photograph at left. It shows tiny seeds from the Red Bud tree. Some of the seeds are infected with weevils. Perhaps some day such a technique will allow ordinary close-up photographs like this one to benefit from much higher resolution too…

My thanks to PHSC member Russ Forfar, a long time fan of science, for the suggestion and link. N.B. At one time I collected light microscopes and related books as well as cameras, photographs and ephemera.

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