• Question: Just say I was going to look at the skin, how would I see all of the cells and the membranes without damaging them?

    Asked by anon-197431 to Rosanna, Matthew, Dan on 15 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Matthew Selwood

      Matthew Selwood answered on 15 Mar 2019:


      That is actually a really difficult question, as most of the high resolution (to look at teenie tiny things) imaging systems are destructive – meaning that you have to pull the cell apart to see what is inside of it. There are some techniques, which is called “Diffraction before Destruction” – the idea is you shine some really high energy x-rays through the cell, and you do it so quickly that the cell looks still and you get a lovely picture of the cell whilst it is alive, from its diffraction pattern of x-rays going through it. The issue is, the cell dies straight after!!

      Trying to achieve the same level of detail without killing the cell is really difficult, and if you can figure it out then you should tell someone and will become very famous for it 🙂

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