Re:Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
by presiozo on Thursday June 04, 2020 @07:58AM
(#23415457)
I thought an individual atom has been imaged before, at least roughly. Anyway, this is fantastic science. I'm excited to see how imaging atoms affects our understanding of quantum mechanics and atomic structure in general.
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Re:Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
by dmitrybrant on Thursday June 04, 2020 @08:33AM
(#23415736)
I think they mean that this is the first time individual atoms have been imaged using this specific type of electron microscope. Individual atoms have of course been imaged as early as the 1980s using scanning tunneling microscopy. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope
Re:Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier
by wumms on Thursday June 04, 2020 @08:03AM
(#23415497)
> has been imaged before
Last year, Aricescu’s team used cryo-EM to map the protein to 2.5 ångströms. But with the new kit, the researchers attained a 1.7-ångström resolution, with even better resolution in some key parts of the protein. “It was like peeling off a blur over your eyes,” Aricescu says. “At this resolution, every half ångström opens up a whole universe.”