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Holographic microscopy of cells in near realtime at 100 nm

kaszz [soylentnews.org] writes:

Holographic microscopy [sciencedaily.com] has been made a reality that can create 3-D images of living cells, almost in real time, and track their reaction to various stimuli without the use of contrast dyes or fluorophores.

The resolution is less than 100 nanometers using a low-intensity laser that scans the sample, numerous images extracted by holography are captured by a digital camera, assembled by a computer and "deconvoluted" in order to eliminate noise.

As a comparison the diameter of the DNA helix is 2 nanometer and a myoglobin protein is 4.5 nanometer [pinimg.com] in diameter.

DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2012.329 [nature.com] "Marker-free phase nanoscopy"

(from 2012 but interesting as it enables researchers to essentially "debug" cells..!)

Re: charon

kaszz [soylentnews.org] writes:

I got a message about "Holographic+microscopy+of+cells+in+near+realtime+at+100+nm" in the message box. But no reply button or destination. So I'll do it here.

The reason I think the article is interesting is that the technique enables to see cells in great detail and in realtime to boot. It changes a lot for researchers. I did however discover the date later but I still think it changes things in a substantial way. 200 nm is to be the diffraction limit for microscopy so to get past that requires being really smart.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2