Why should we consider this years Nobel Prize in chemistry, and why is it in the Pictures Considered section at Small Things Considered in the first place? A hint comes from one of the many press releases: ... for improving the resolution of optical microscopes. Aha! Microscopes are at the heart of microbiology since Robert Hooke (†1703) and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (†1723). But as any attendee of a basic course in microbiology learns, light microscopy is physically restrained by Abbes diffraction limit, which means that in practice structures smaller than ~1/2 of the wavelength of visible light (390 – 700 nm for humans) cannot be resolved. Too bad if you want to look at structures inside bacteria en détail (E. coli: ~1 µm, depending on growth conditions) or observe phages attaching to host cells (phage T5: 90 nm Ø capsid, 250 nm long tail). Electron microscopy and — more recently — cryo electron tomography are a way out...
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 23:15:01 +0000
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