I was flicking through a copy of Nature this morning and found the published article for the research from the Swiss Light Source which I commented on earlier this month.
The research, by Dierolf et. al. [1], describes a technique in X-ray microscopy which allows structures at the 100nm scale to be visualised (resolution <1mm³). This is pretty impressive and (in the example given) allowed lacunae and canniculae in bone to be resolved clearly. This allows very accurate assessment of osteocyte (bone cell) activity, in particular to study microscale structural changes in osteoporosis.
[1] Martin Dierolf, Andreas Menzel, Pierre Thibault, Philipp Schneider, Cameron M. Kewish, Roger Wepf, Oliver Bunk & Franz Pfeiffer, 2010. Ptychographic X-ray computer tomography at the nanoscale. Nature, 23 September 2010, Vol. 467, pp 436-439. doi:10.1038/nature09419
No comments:
Post a Comment