Microscopes

From an igniting match to a mouse embryo and a micrometeorite, the winners of the annual Nikon Small World photomicrography competition have been unveiled. As always, this year’s stunning images capture the wonder of the tiny hidden universe around us.

Researchers have combined two microscopic imaging techniques in one microscope, providing scientists with a high-resolution method of tracking single molecules in a cellular context, letting them visualize, in minute detail, what’s happening inside cells.

A bright red waterfall isn’t something you’d expect to see on the icy landscape of Antarctica, but that’s what’s pouring out from the foot of Taylor Glacier. Scientists now claim to have solved the mystery behind the crimson waters of Blood Falls.

Using AI, researchers have created the first map of a protein group known as the Commander complex, which functions as a "postal worker" in the body. The new understanding opens the door to new drugs and modalities for fighting a range of conditions.

This stunning image may look like a particularly lively Jackson Pollock painting, but it’s actually an example of a new cell imaging technique. The subject? A human retina.

Move over, macro: researchers have created the world’s smallest silicon LED and holographic microscope, and among its uses is a hack that'll let you use your smartphone to view objects as tiny as a single human skin cell in brilliant high resolution.

Caltech scientists have created a quantum microscope that taps into the quirky quantum rules to see tiny details much more clearly. Using pairs of entangled photons allows the instrument to double the resolution of images without damaging the sample.

If the bacteria with which someone is infected are antibiotic-resistant, physicians need to know so as soon as possible. A simple new system could help, by detecting such resistance in just two hours as opposed to the usual 24.

Scientists at Duke University have developed an incredibly powerful new camera that combines dozens of lenses to capture images and video at resolutions of thousands of megapixels, in three dimensions.

History is full of artifacts that later turn out to be fakes, but occasionally the opposite can happen. New analysis of ancient Roman coins long dismissed as forgeries has found they seem to be authentic, revealing a previously unknown Roman emperor.

Scientists at Duke University have created a real-time video that captures the frantic movements of a single virus as it tries to infect a cell. The video shows a part of the process that’s normally hard to see.

Physicists at the Australian National University say that optical microscopes should get a huge boost in magnification, after their discovery of a new high harmonic laser illumination technique, using a tiny cylinder 1/50th the width of a human hair.