New imaging technique sees details without dye, may cook sample

Enlarge / Raman microscopy images can pick out the details of different chemicals inside a cell. (credit: NSF)

I had a remarkable experience last week. A scientific paper crossed my desk that seemed to take a theoretical idea that I and my colleagues developed and made it work. This simply does not happen to people like me. On closer inspection, the imaging technique that was demonstrated is closely related to-but slightly different from-the ideas we had developed. Still, I was pretty excited by the paper, and now you have to be as well.

The reading of the day

Before we get to the good stuff, let me wax lyrical about imaging. Imaging is without a doubt our best scientific tool. Whenever it is possible to turn data into an image, we do it. Why? Because the clichi(C) "a picture is worth a thousand words" is wrong: it is off by about two orders of magnitude. A picture is worth 100,000 words.

The proof is in progress. We've gone from telescopes and microscopes that use visible light to telescopes that create images from microwaves and radiowaves. We use electrons to create images of tiny features on surfaces, and we use electrons to image through thin samples and see the positions of atoms. We run tiny needles along surfaces to create images of surfaces at atomic resolution. And we combine huge magnets with microwaves to image blood flow in the brain.

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