Gizmorama - November 3, 2014

Good Morning,

A team of scientists have developed a microscope so powerful that it can view cellular life like never seen before. We're talking at the molecular level here!
Technology is amazing!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- New microscope allows scientists to see world like never before --*
WASHINGTON (UPI) - A team of more than 30 scientists -- including Eric Betzig, who just won the Nobel Prize for his work in microscopy -- have developed a super-powered microscope capable of seeing cellular life in greater detail than ever before.

Using sheets of light to scan cells, the microscope can capture closeups at the molecular level, dividing in real time -- a feat scientists previously thought to be impossible. The technology, called the lattice light sheet microscope, offers imagery at a resolution of up to 230 nanometers and can capture 1,000 frames per second.

"This really lets you look at the dynamic processes in cells in 3-D non-invasively," Betzig, an engineering physicist, told Popular Mechanics. "We can go small for single-molecule imaging, or move up to study multiple organelles interacting inside a cell, or how cells interact with their environments and other cells."

"On the biggest scale, we can look at developmental biology," he added. "I'm amazed at my four children, and all the events that had to happen in a precise way for the perfection that has come out at the end."

The engineers who helped develop the hardware have teamed with a range of biologists to utilize their new tool, recording stunning videos of biological processes -- including isolated processes like the movement of cellular proteins, as well as more expansive activity, like the development of animal embryos.

Ultimately, scientists hope their new development won't be limited in scope, but be adapted to advance all kinds of scientific investigations.

"This is not a single imaging technique," explained Kai Wang, one of the technology's inventors and author of a new paper on the microscope's development. "It's an imaging platform."


*-- Ebola virus more ancient than scientists previously thought --*
BUFFALO, N.Y. (UPI) - Filoviruses, the virus family of which Ebola is a member, appeared between 16 and 23 million years ago, researchers from the University of Buffalo say, making the deadly virus currently ravaging West Africa much older than previously thought.

Most scientists believed Ebola and its relatives first appeared approximately 10,000 years ago. But a new analysis of the virus's genetic roots suggest both Ebola and the Marburg virus -- another deadly hemorrhagic fever virus -- share ancient evolutionary ties dating as far back as 23 million years ago.

The researchers were able to trace the evolutionary lines of the two viruses by analyzing genetic material left behind by the virus in animal fossils.

"Filoviruses are far more ancient than previously thought," lead study author Derek Taylor, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, said in the press release. "These things have been interacting with mammals for a long time, several million years."

Most of the viruses' genetic markers were located in the bones of rodents, in particular voles and hamsters. The same genes were found in the same location, suggesting filoviruses have been around as long as the two rodent species have.

"These rodents have billions of base pairs in their genomes, so the odds of a viral gene inserting itself at the same position in different species at different times are very small," Taylor said. "It's likely that the insertion was present in the common ancestor of these rodents."

Though such research may not seem as vital as developing a new vaccine, scientists say there is still a lot we don't know about Ebola, and the more we know, they say, the better we may be able to combat it.

The research was detailed this week in the science journal PeerJ.

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