How do scientists determine the texture of cells?

trout gill cell AFM

This post was co-authored by Arielle Mensch & Yi Cui We recently received a very intriguing question from a 12-year old reader, Olivia, who asked, “How do scientists figure out the texture of cells?” This is a great question, and like most great questions, the answer is a bit complicated! Scientists have a variety of …

Royal Rife’s Universal Microscope (and Why It Can’t Exist)

Royal Rife

In the 1930s, microscope designer Royal Rife made a splash with reports that he had designed a new microscope that could view nanoscale objects such as viruses!1 The only problem was that it didn’t work. In fact, it couldn’t work, based on the basic physics of light. Rife was attempting to improve upon the optical …

How Can We Photograph the Nanosized World?

If you think back to primary school science class, you may recall looking at cells or bacteria under a microscope. I remember being fascinated that I could look at objects invisible to the naked eye by simply looking into a laboratory instrument. Now what if you wanted to look at something that was thousands of …