British Universities Film & Video Council

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How New Science is Transforming the Optical Microscope

Synopsis
Video recording of the 2012 Leeuwenhoek Lecture given at the Royal Society on 13 February 2012 by Dr Brad Amos. There are two rules for making an optical microscope: the lenses must be small, since defects of colour and focus increase with lens size, and the lenses must capture light from the object over as wide an angle as possible to record fine detail. This was understood a century ago, however, lasers, computers and chemically-specific labels have produced an explosion of development recently. To see molecular detail, a hundredfold improvement in resolution is needed, but has not yet been obtained. A new method is described, which can show anatomy at the scale of micrometres and subcellular detail in the same image of a specimen such as a mouse embryo. This is the first microscope system to disobey the ‘small lens’ rule. (65 minutes)
Language
English
Country
Great Britain
Year of release
2012
Year of production
2012
Subjects
Biology; Physics; Technology
Keywords
lenses; optical microscopy; technological innovation

Online availability

URI
http://royalsociety.org/events/2012/optical-microscope/
Price
free
Delivery
Streamed

Credits

Contributor
Brad Amos

Distributor

Name

Royal Society: Royalsociety.tv

Email
http://royalsociety.org/contact-us/?from=header
Web
http://royalsociety.org/ External site opens in new window
Phone
020 7451 2500
Address
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London
SW1Y 5AG
Notes
Royalsociety.tv offers live webcasts as well as podcasts and free, on-demand streaming of video and audio recordings of events held at the Royal Society. Lectures and discussions feature leading scientists and cover history of science as well as exploring cutting-edge science and culture.

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