Science | WPN World People News

Scientists used one of the world's most powerful electron microscopes to map the precise location and chemical type of 23,000 atoms in an extremely small particle made of iron and platinum.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a group of carbon-based chemicals with low evaporation or vaporization points. Some VOCs are harmful to animal or environmental health so sensing these gasses is important for maintaining health and safety. VOCs also occur in nature and can be useful in medical diagnostics, which require highly sensitive sensors to be effective.

Optical microscopy is applied widely in the life sciences sector. Among others, it is used to minimally invasively examine living cells. Resolution of conventional light microscopy, however, is limited to half the wavelength of light, i.e. about 200 nm, such that finest cellular structures are blurred in the image. In the past years, various nanoscopy methods were developed which overcome the diffraction limit and produce images of highest resolution. Stefan W. Hell, Eric Betzig, and William Moerner were granted the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their nanoscopy methods in 2014. Now, researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have refined the STED (Simulated Emission Depletion) nanoscopy method developed by Hell by modifying image acquisition in a way that background is suppressed efficiently. The resulting enhanced image quality is particularly advantageous for quantitative data analysis of three-dimensional, densely arranged molecules and cell structures. The new nanoscopy method named STEDD (Stimulated Emission Double Depletion) developed by the team of Professor Gerd Ulrich Nienhaus of KIT's Institute of Applied Physics (APH) and Institute of Nanotechnology (INT) is presented in Nature Photonics.

Using tiny snippets of DNA as "barcodes," researchers have developed a new technique for rapidly screening the ability of nanoparticles to selectively deliver therapeutic genes to specific organs of the body. The technique could accelerate the development and use of gene therapies for such killers as heart disease, cancer and Parkinson's disease.

An international team, led by a scientist from the University of Sussex, have unveiled the first practical blueprint, on 1 February 2017, for how to build a quantum computer, the most powerful computer on Earth.