Many important discoveries in cell biology have been made by introducing specific compounds into a certain cell and observing the effect. Several methods have been used for the introduction of the compounds. For example, permeabilizing the cell by electroporation (an electric shock that has been demonstrated to poke holes in the plasma membrane), the use of biologic molecules (such as streptolysin 0) to create channels in the plasma membrane, or detergents to dissolve hoies in the plasma membrane. Several laboratories have shown these methods to be effective, but one questions the physiologic state of a holey cell. Liposomes or similar vehicles can be packed with compounds and fused with the cells of interest, but this method of introduction has drawbacks as well.

The major factor in light microscopy limiting resolution in practice is not so much the wavelength of light and the resolving power of microscope optics, but the scattering of iight by the specimen. This extraneous scattered light interferes with the light used to image the specimen, effectively reducing the contrast of the imaging light and causing other annoying problems, There have been several inventions dedicated to solving this problem: various forms of interference-based microscopies, confocal microscopy, and most recently, multi-photon confocal microscopy.

With the approach of a new century everyone is getting nostalgic; we just can't resist reflecting on the past and envisioning the future. This struck me with renewed passion on 26 January 1999 when my latest patent (with co-inventor Steven H, Vogel) on a new Confocal Microspectrometer System was issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, What resonated in my mind was the sage advice I received from an admired and distinguished scientist nearly forty years ago, The learned professor opined, "Why do you want to be a microscopist? That's old stuff. No scientific discoveries can be made in microscopy; it is just not a research field. Microscopists never amount to more than glorified technicians". Since then I have seen Professor Dr, J, S, Ploem develop Epf Fluorescence, which revolutionized cytology and expanded the way we think of fluorescence microscopy, I have seen the introduction of the scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive x-ray spectrometers, ESCA, Auger, acoustic microscopes, scanning probe microscopy, confocal microscopy, quantitative image analysis, video-microscopy, FT-IR microspectrometry and many more.

The Interdepartmental Laboratories (IDL) is the core microscopy and scientific visualization research facility for the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Its purpose is to operate and maintain facilities that have broad application within the Museum and would be either too costly for the individual research departments to maintain or which would be underused in a typical department setting, The IDL currently maintains two state-of-the-art analytical/imaging microscopes, as well as resources for visualization, webaccessible databases, and networked image scanning, archiving, and printing. The IDL is overseen by Bill Barnett, the IDL Director, and staffed by Angela Klaus, the Laboratory Manager, and David Reddy, the Scientific Visualization and Informatics Manager.

This laboratory has compared several techniques in our effort to produce artifact-free SEM images in order to compare the effect of different stabilizers on microstructure of soft serve frozen yogurt and stirred yogurt. Such samples are a porous matrix of casein micelles fused to form chains which immobilize the liquid phase. Two sample preparation protocols were used: cryo-SEM for the product sampled at lower temperature, and encapsulation of those semi-liquid or soft-set yogurts within an agar gel tube or in drilled aluminum stubs / molds coated with low melting point 3% agar.

A selection of the more common questions arising during a typical lab course for materials majors learning to use a TEM is as follows

1. 1) Why must I insert the objective aperture, which governs image contrast, in the diffraction plane?

   2) Why must I insert the selected area diffraction aperture, which governs the diffraction pattern contrast in the image plane?

   3) Why is the TEM relatively useless if both apertures are in at the same time or both are out?

   4) Why is the contrast in my images always greatest when the beam is parallel - which makes the screen intensity so weak, I sometimes can't see the contrast anyhow?

   5) Why, when I need to record a diffraction pattern, do I have to learn to estimate exposure time from the analog screen, rather than just push a button and get a correct exposure, as in most other optical instruments and cameras?

Tallahassee, Fla. - Dan Zuras admits he never thought he'd be alive when a scientist discovered the microscopic Road Runner image he engraved on a computer chip 16 years ago.

But then again, at the time, who knew the minute circuitry of microprocessors would grace the pages of wall calendars in the 1990s?

Wee pictures of everything from animals to license plates have become the signatures of chip creators, But knowledge of this practive generally stayed within industry circles - until Florida State University researcher Michael Davidson discovered the imprints left by engineers under his highpower microscope.

It is extremely difficult to remove artifacts common to eye tissue such as folds, shrinking raisin effect, and parched earth effect. By adjusting our fixation and processing procedures, we attempted to reduce or eliminate these artifacts. We tested the fixatives from various vendors to determine which of them is most compatible with eye tissue and which would eliminate artifacts. We found Pen-Fix (alcoholic formalin; Richard Allen, Richland, Ml) produced optimal fixation (well defined nuclear detail, without bubbling artifact). In similar testing, we found Peel-a-way (Shandon-Lipshaw, Pittsburgh, PA) to be the optimal paraffin for processing and embedding ocular tissues.

There are two approaches to determining the thickness of a carbon film evaporated onto a specimen. One approach is to do the evaporation first and to measure the result afterwards. There are several ways to do this. The second approach is to put down a determined amount of carbon in the first place. This clearly has advantages in many cases. The method described here is of this second kind. The thickness of the carbon coating is not measured, but by a predetermined recipe, the amount put on is controlled at the time of evaporation, In principle, the thickness could be measured during the evaporation with a quartz-crystal thickness monitor. However, we find that the monitor we have does not work well with carbon.