Are there images of atoms

Although the scientists showed how their new process could do so in theory, they have not yet demonstrated it experimentally. Anna Blaustein is a science journalist. She has a bachelor's degree in biology from Bowdoin College and a master's degree in science writing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Already a subscriber? Sign in. Thanks for reading Scientific American.

Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. In a first, scientists have managed to partially restore the vision of a blind patient by genetically altering their cells so they produce more light-sensitive proteins.

The technique known as optogenetics has been developed in the field of neuroscience over the last 20 years. In some cases of blindness, known as inherited photoreceptor diseases, light-sensing cells in the retina that use proteins to deliver visual information to the brain via the optic nerve progressively degenerate.

The team began treating a man who had lost his sight due to an inherited photoreceptor disease 40 years ago using optogenetic techniques.

This involved injections in his eye, along with light-emitting goggles, which transformed images of the visual world into light pulses projected into the retina in real-time. They were eventually able to restore partial sight for the year-old patient, leaving him able to recognise, count, locate and touch different objects laid out on a table in front of him. However, it will still take time until this therapy can be offered to patients.

More here. Pied tamarins are critically endangered and have one of the smallest ranges of any primate in the world, much of it around the city of Manaus, while red-handed tamarins are found throughout the north-eastern Amazon region. The researchers found that when groups of red-handed tamarins entered territory shared with pied tamarins, the red-handed tamarins adopted the long calls used by the pied tamarins.

Red-handed tamarins have greater vocal flexibility and use calls more often than pied tamarins, and the scientists believe they might alter their calls to avoid territorial disputes over resources. Also read: Indian jumping ants shrink their brains trying to become queen.

Wholly ignoring the fact that government as a whole makes Capitalism possible in the modern sense, from foundational research to a safe legal business environment, and all the other infrastructure and services it provides. Does not sound so impressive after this, right?! No matter how you count it, the very real! Bolton is noting that the GDP is increased by the investments made by taxpayers.

What he is also noting is that the corporations that do this pay little to no tax and thus the depriving the taxpayers of a return on their investment. What DOES happen to those unpaid taxes is that they are paid out as bonuses to already frantically over-compensated executives that, in turn, lobby against programs to help Americans in general and work ceaselessly to keep workers powerless "right to work" laws , fearful minimal unemployment benefits, meager social safety nets and poorly paid threats of outsourcing, automation.

So, in fact, while the nation does benefit from medical research funded by the government, it is big pharma that gets the big payday. Big tech has minted billionaires exploiting the internet yet inequality has only increased. Yes, dollars getting spent does make paychecks. But this is supply side economics that has just impoverished the angry elements of the US. As it is obvious and as I explained above the taxpayers get a HUGE return to their investments here we discuss the investments into fundamental science which result in practical applications.

Where do you think these bonuses LIVE? Note that I agree that [some of] the effects you discuss exist. The property tax on his mansion? Doesn't amount to a rounding error in his accountant's Excel spreadsheet. For that matter, yeah let's talk about the taxes his employees pay-which amount to around thirty percent of their meager salary.

Until the taxpayers pick up the tab to fix their broken bodies through L and I, after six months of Amazon Pick packages per hour, 10 hour shifts with literally no bathroom breaks, destroys them. Amazon doesn't pay to hook up their buildings to power, water and sewer because "opportunity.

Who again, pay no taxes after all the incentives are factored in. So you are right. Employees pay taxes. And speaking of 'money in motion' you are also correct-money has to move to do good. But when literally trillions of dollars are tied up immobile in Cayman Islands tax shelters, why exactly do you think the Fed has to continue quantitative easing? As in, printing more money so as to allow the economy to continue to function? It's because a hundred humans and a few hundred Corporations own over 90 percent of our nation's capital.

That money isn't moving, and it's not gonna BE moving, til we start taxing the rich. You know, like back in the '50s and '60s for which every Boomer is so wistfully nostalgic. I can't blame them-the '60s were awesome if you were white, male, and could get out of Vietnam..

So you confirm my point: omitting emotions mostly envy! Ahh, speaking of emotions.. No, no I am not. I am in fact a small business owner who pays a considerable portion of his business income way the frack more than zero, lemme tell you into taxes.

Gladly, willingly. My kids get a good education; EMS, fire and police services function when needed, the roads are mostly well maintained.

They take and take and take and never put back. To quote the least emotional character I know: The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one. And I try to choose them basing on numbers, not emotions. If you-just you, individually-are worth in assets five times the entire bi-annual operating budget of the state in which you live, yet there's anything wrong in your state that can be fixed with money-and you aren't fixing it..

If everyone generating that capital for you isn't full time employed at a thriving wage with full union representation and benefits and pensions..

Drivers have to pee in bottles to maintain Amazon's delivery schedule. Workers die on the warehouse floor. It's statistically more dangerous to work for Amazon Pick than it is to be a cop, lumberjack, or firefighter. I refuse to discuss these topics too. And it seems that you never worked as an educator. And: I observe that you do not discuss taxes any more! Maybe I could convince you that taxes are just a tip of the iceberg?

I say a bunch of red dots doesn't really show me anything. And I get "oh my gawd - you are simpleton and anti-science". On one hand, what you say makes a lot of sense: it is hard to make a judgement on somebody based on one sentence. Agreement to spend this effort or at at least acknowledgement of its necessity is IMO the litmus test in pro- vs.

BTW, how much time did you spend over this article before posting? Well - I have a STEM degree and am an engineer - so hard to see how I could be anti-science as most of my work is directly related to current science. However - I am also a philosopher of science, so - that being the case - I understand the project of science, as well as - how it is normally transmitted to the general public.

I also understand the mafia of science - which is on full display here at the mere hint that I might not be bowing down at the alter of science and not really science - but the alter of science - which is different. That is not the point. The point is the unequal allocation of resources due to tax policies that favor the wealthy.

IOW it is not that money disappears but that it goes into unproductive wallets. Your argument is still one of trickle down economics that has demonstrably increased inequality. I will note that it was extreme inequality that precipitated revolutions throughout history.

Disingenuous arguments will not solve the problem. As for reasons for revolution, it seems that you need to read more classics of Marxism—Leninism. Of course, most of what they wrote is also complete BS, but Lenin found quite a meaningful formulation of preconditions for revolutions. I wonder what experience you have with revolutions…. Why the 'end run'. If the real goal is to do an ask on the public to support science - I am OK with that.

But maybe the messaging should be more around how science is solving big problems in the world today. Give us a better solar panel. Give us a fast charging battery. Give us a self driving car. Give us a better heart valve. But 'images' of atoms do not really do much - for me at least. I don't see this 'photo' as step in the advancement process - it is more of a side show. Read the article again. These are computer-generated images, the result of algorithms working on data obtained at a much larger scale.

They aren't photos of atoms. It would not be a traditional photograph like we think of on this website. BTW - most of the spectacular astro photographs from Hubble and other far reaching large telescopes are also not how you would see them 'through the lens'. They are also highly processed. You know your digital camera is just computer generated imagery from a sensor that measures light?

Actually, they are, very much so, photographs of atoms, obtained from captured photons bouncing off atoms. Not conventional photos of atoms, mind you; but, nonetheless, literal photos of atoms.

But that wouldn't stop digital photos from being photos. And that's because they're all what they are: the outcome of a convoluted process that starts at capturing photons. That photo of a black hole? Computer generated. Anything from an MRI? The radon transform takes inputs that look as far from the final image as the examples shown, so those are also computer generated. Even the lithographic mask used to produce your computer and camera sensor looks nothing like the actual silicon layout - they use a computer to undo the diffraction in the lithography.

I have not read the paper itself yet, but judging by the popular expositions the involved math should be way more complicated than the Radon transform mentioned by xlucine. In any case, the data collected, when visualized in a conventional way, look nothing like the object imaged, so the main point stays.

Computer-generated does not mean "fake". Many people mix the two terms. A radar or a radio telescope image is also computer-generated based on real data. But they are still showing real objects. The issue is diffraction. The wavelength of visible light ranges from to nm nanometers.

The wavelength of electrons depends on the speed they are travelling; in a typical electron microscope the wavelength of electrons is in the 0. Shorter wavelengths mean less diffraction.

It is possible to compensate for diffraction mathematically, and I believe that the researchers do this, but there are limits to this, so it would be very difficult to view individual atoms using visible light. You know the night sky that you see with your eyes are a few thousands of years in the past right? Meaning its not real now. Says who? Anybody who knows Special Relativity would not agree with you!

It is as real as real is real! Most people would probably use as a minimal definition that photons have to be involved if something is to be called a photo-graph. This discussion is getting even more pedantic than OP. Can we all just agree that these are photos of atoms as much as anyone could take a photo of an atom and that no one is hiding the 'real' atom photos, which no one ever imagined reading this article headline in the first place?

You need to spoil the game exactly when the discussion gets really interesting! Linguistic is fun! Although both cases match my attempt of the definition above at least with the old-fashioned radars, without phased arrays! Sweet morher of Jesus! I just would love to have that macro lens in my camera. But I think I will settle for a lens with less might, have the feeling I am looking at All Maker's fingers at work.

Mostly, though, an atom is empty space. So not only are lightwaves far too large to reflect off them, even if they were smaller, there is almost nothing to reflect off of. Solutions to this problem have been ingenious.

In , American physicists used an electron microscope to capture an image of a single hydrogen atom , the smallest and lightest atom of all. Other options include a quantum microscope , which has also been used to capture images of a hydrogen atom. Your go-to source for all the best Black Friday deals: tech, toys, fashion, mattresses, beauty, wellness, travel and more. The holiday, which is a big deal elsewhere, is becoming a thing here, too.

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