Category Technology/Electronics

1. Color electron micrograph of an endosome, a cell organelle. Credit: Ranjan Ramachandra, UCSD 2. Check out more of our winter holiday-themed Cool Image collections

While it may look like a pine wreath dotted with crimson berries, it is in fact one of the world’s first color electron micrographs – and the method used to create it may dramatically advance cell imaging. As his Christmas gift to himself each year, the late biochemist Roger Tsien treated himself to 2 weeks of uninterrupted research in his lab. This image is a product of those annual sojourns.

Electron microscopy (EM) is a time-honored technique for visualizing cell structures that uses beams of accelerated electrons to magnify objects up to 10 million times their actual size...

High-voltage cell with Li metal anode and LLZCN electrolyte

A team of researchers at the University of Maryland Energy Research Center and A. James Clark School of Engineering have announced a transformative development in the race to produce batteries that are at once safe, powerful, and affordable. The researchers are developing game-changing solid-state battery technology, and have made a key advance by inserting a layer of ultra-thin aluminum oxide between lithium electrodes and a solid non-flammable ceramic electrolyte known as garnet. Prior to this advance, there had been little success in developing high-performance, garnet-based solid-state batteries, because the high resistance, between the garnet electrolyte and electrode materials limited the flow of energy or current.

The ultra...

Dark brown fallow deer (buck) with big antlers is shown. Credit: Wikipedia commons

Scientists from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) have discovered the secret behind the toughness of deer antlers and how they can resist breaking during fights. The team looked at the antler structure at the nano-level and were able to identify the mechanisms at work, using state-of-the-art computer modelling and xray techniques.

Paolino De Falco from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science said: “The fibrils that make up the antler are staggered rather than in line with each other. This allows them to absorb the energy from the impact of a clash during a fight...

This diagram shows the setup for an imaging method that mapped electrical signals using a sheet of graphene and an infrared laser. The laser was fired through a prism (lower left) onto a sheet of graphene. An electrode was used to send tiny electrical signals into a liquid solution (in cylinder atop the graphene), and a camera (lower right) was used to capture images mapping out these electrical signals. (Credit: Halleh Balch and Jason Horng/Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley)

Team creates a system to visualize faint electric fields. Scientists have enlisted the exotic properties of graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of carbon, to function like the film of an incredibly sensitive camera system in visually mapping tiny electric fields in a liquid...