I'm sure that you've heard a lot about nanoart, but yesterday I read a very interesting article about a nanoart artist. Jan Kirstein, an art teacher at Western Hills High School, was one of 15 artists from four countries whose work was selected for the first International Festival of NanoArt in the Kotkan Valokuvakeskus Gallery in Finland. NanoArt is art that is created through chemical and physical processes using monochromatic images from microscopes. In other words, it's the technique that combines science and art together. Jan digitally painted and manipulated a microscope image, and incorporated a self-portrait to create the work. For all her purposes she used a home printer to print a 12-by-18-inch version of the piece to send to the gallery. Kirstein estimates it took her a week to complete her digital artwork. In her work she used the colors and water to symbolize ice melting and rain from global warming. Kirstein said her job as a teacher introduced her to digital art because of the use of computers in the classroom. She said she is working to get microscope images from her brother, to allow her students a chance to create similar art.

Veeco Instruments Inc. - a nanoscience instrumentation supplier has finalized an agreement with Leica Microsystems – manufacturer of optical microscopy systems. This agreement is about driving the biological and nano-medicine research. The main part of this collaboration is an integration of Veeco's BioScope II atomic force microscope with Leica's DMI series of inverted microscopes for new high-resolution imagery. The new integrated atomic force microscope will be appropriate for a wide array of cutting-edge bioscience applications, such as spatial identification of protein molecules and cellular structures, investigations of cell response to mechanical stimulation and nanomanipulation, and in-situ pharmacological studies of live cells. By being able to mechanically probe and manipulate cellular samples without complicated preparation, biologists can have a unique view into cell functionality and are able to conduct experiments which were impossible with traditional microscopy techniques.

Recently I read about microscopes, that different kinds of microscopes have been among the most important tools in the biologist's kit for a long time. In the very beginning everything was very simple, but at present days there are instruments, which are capable of resolving the shapes of individual proteins and other biological macromolecules. Recent developments in electron and ion microscopy are revolutionizing many areas of biological investigation. Anyways, I fell in love with microscopes when I was very little, and still this first love is growing and strengthening.

Well, nowadays, many people talk about nanotechnology. Do you honestly know what nanotechnology is? The basic definition of nanotechnology is that it's the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. But in its original sense, nanotechnology represents the projected ability to construct items from the bottom up. So, it means that nanotechnology gives scientists the ability to create new materials, atom by atom. With increasingly more powerful microscopes, scientists can see molecules mere nanometers or even billionths of a meter in size. Working on a scale smaller than what easily can be seen is possible only with powerful microscopes. Nanotechnology is mostly just chemistry, and most people are extremely bored with chemistry, so most likely this field will interest only scientists.

Yesterday I was searching the internet, and all of a sudden I saw some pictures that drew my attention. They were so gorgeous, and as I saw more, I liked them more and more. In my mind I thought that it was some modern artist, but later on I read an article about these pictures. And it turned out that these materials were released by the Materials research Society. All of the pictures I saw were captured by a ... microscope! Can you imagine that? A simple microscope can produce the real art? It's still hard for me to believe. But anyway, researchers from across the globe brought their best microscope pictures to the annual Science as Art competition in San Francisco. And only eight winners were selected from more than 200 entries. This is wonderful! I'm 100% sure that it's a MUST SEE for all of you! Do, don't waste your time, go ahead, and take a look.

When the rocks come from the outer space, we call them meteorites, they arose so much interest in our minds. Asteroids can tell us about the earliest history, the dawn of the solar system. These rocks are part of the story about how the solar system was forming and evolving. So, instead of using the biggest and most magnifying telescopes, researchers use the most powerful microscopes in order to learn how things were formed. In 1944, as a part of Institute of Meteoritics, there was founded the UNM's Meteorite Museum and Collection. Nowadays the museum's collection holds more than 5,000 individual specimens, which on the other hand represent more than 600 meteorites. There is also the star sample in this collection - a half-ton meteorite that was found in Kansas on a farmer's field. And even more than that, museum also has a tiny sample from Mars. Anyways, microscopes itself, play the most important role in this research and making new discoveries.

The optic microscope uses visible light together with a set of lenses which help to magnify tiny specimens placed under it. Nowadays this microscope is considered to be the oldest. But at the same time optic microscope is the easiest of all available microscopes to use. There are two types of optic microscopes available. The basic version of this type of microscope has only one lens, while the advance optic microscope version is known as a compound optic microscope has several lenses. The simple microscope uses only one lens that provides the necessary magnification to view specimen. Nowadays there are very few microscopes made using a single convex lens. It's easier to find something similar in magnifying glasses, hand lenses or loupes. As with all microscopes the optic microscope shares some very basic components that you find on the others.

I happened that I had to make a report about the history of microscopes. So, the fact that in 19th century people couldn't take photos with microscopes, because they simply didn't have that feature. But the interesting fact in order to help people imagine things and objects that can't be seen artists drew pictures and made lithographs of them. The point of that was to communicate with people and let them know, for example, about germs (which they can't really see), to tell what a big threat they are for the society. So, artists presented them in forms of very ugly and dirty bugs. It seemed very interesting to me. Of course nowadays, we can easily look under a microscope; there is no need to draw colored threatening cartoon like pictures for us. I don't really know how many people at the end oft he 19th century perceived newspaper and magazine ad illustrations as true depictions of the microscopic world, but surely the less cartoonish illustrations had an effect on them.

In a scientific journal "Nature" it was confirmes that in NY man's navel has been discovered a small, but a very perfect Mayan temple. Dr. Iuchi Sukoka of the Ohio General Hospital, inspected the inner portion of man's navel, and reported the finding of a temple. After examining it under a microscope, they noticed a small horse tracks and the remains of a sacrifice on the man's chest. You don't even need a microscope to look at it and say that the temple is incredible. And what is more important, that it will undoubtedly reveal information about the Mayan peoples that we could not have gained in any other way.

Igor Smolyaninov, Yu-Ju Hung, and Christopher Davis at Maryland University, US, created a "superlens", which refracts light I unconventional ways. This method allows an optical microscope to see beyond the normal limit of its vision. In mind researchers have hope to develp a cheaper mass produced version of it, in or der to uprade the microscopes used in research laboratories. The difference between the optical lenses and light waves is that optical lenses can only resolve details down to those that are half the wavelength of light in size. By the way, lenses are made from an arrangement of concentric plastic rings, spaced about 500 nanometres apart, on the top of a gold surface.

At the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado-Boulder, CO scientists have developed a new technology that might be able to improve the speed of scanning tunneling microscopes by as much as 500 times! This device consists of a tiny gold beam whose 40 million vibrations per second are measured by electrons. This device measures the wiggling of the beam. According to researchers, this technology might lead to the way for scientists to watch atoms vibrate in real time.

The University in Vancouver has created the world's smallest published book, but the trick is that in order to read it you'll need a microscope. Teeny Ted from Turnip Town as reported is even teenier than the two current smallest books listed by Guinness World Records. The physics professor said that they consider this masterpiece just a work of art, in other words, no more than a fun project. In order to achieve this result, the team used a focused-gallium-ion beam and also an electron microscope to carve the book onto 30 micro tablets made from crystalline silicon. This tiny work of art seen only under a microscope is already available in signature edition copies at the NOT-so-SMALL cost of approximately $20,000.

US scientists developed a lens that can transmit images over long distances with a resolution that is not restricted by light wavelength. Conventional lenses can't focus on objects less than half the size of the wavelength of light, so anything smaller will be imaged using an electron microscope. Xiang Zhang and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley say that they escaped this limitation with their new far-field superlens. To be correct, Zhang's group developed a superlens in 2005, but at that time it was only capable of projecting an image in the near field so that the sensor used to capture the image had to be placed within nanometers of the lens. But the new FSL can transmit high-resolution images over much longer distances by converting evanescent waves into propagating waves. The US researchers have achieved this improvement by introducing carefully designed corrugations to the surface of the superlens. The purpose of the new Far-Field SuperLens is that it brings the high-resolution image from the near field to the far field in order that it can be seen using a regular microscope or a still digital camera.

As you know, or maybe even remember from your youth memories, science for schoolchildren can be either very exciting or mind-numbing experience. Most of it depends of the techniques teachers use, so if teachers' only means of enriching the minds of little ones comes in the form of books, and not hands-on experience, then there is nothing to talk about here. However, some Centers, such as The University of York's Centre for Novel Agricultural Products, offer a brilliant alternative. This is a science outreach project that focuses on the wonder of the microscopic world. Before that only schoolchildren in Britain were lucky enough to have access to this program in the past, but luckily organizers decided to take it continental. And, so the first stop was The British School in the Netherlands. The selected in Netherlands school will take part in two different workshops: one is based on science, where children will experience science through microscopes, and the other is based on arts, where children will work with a local artist to use art to express what they see through a stereo microscope. And what is even more interesting, parents also get involved in this project, as they attend after school activities with their children. For sure, the amount that can be learnt through practical hands-on experience can't be underestimated.

Zeiss presented PALM MicroBeam (Positioning and Ablation with Laser Microbeams) Laser for scientists working in pharmaceutical industry, life science research, and in forensics and plant research. With this new microscopy invention those fragile living cells will have maximum protection from exposure and bleaching. PALM MicroBeam was built upon the Zeiss Axio Observer inverted microscope. It uses a technology for contamination-free specimen acquisition. It was said that PALM is the only instrument able to do simultaneous visualization and microdissection under multichannel fluorescence illumination and extended focus.

Microscope stages are small platforms where specimens are placed for observation. There are many different types of microscope stages, including automated stages, manual stages, motorized stages, rotary stages, and Z-axis stages. Scanning stages can also be designed to hold one slide or multiple slides, allowing the user to examine numerous samples without changing slides on the microscope stage and refocusing the lens. Microscope stages differ in terms of travel, lighting, and features. Most microscope stages are used with glass microscope slides and covers.

A Microscope Condenser consists of a lens or set of lenses that focuses the light onto the specimen. There are different types of condensers, such as a condenser incorporated in the stage, and a condenser that is incorporated under the stage and is able to focus light. In most condensers, the top lens can be unscrewed from the field lens, which can itself be unscrewed and removed from the mount with diaphragm. The lenses can safely be cleaned by slightly breathing on the lens surface and wiping the surface firmly with a tissue. Dusty condenser lenses have little effect upon image quality except for dry darkfield setups where dust on the top lens will catch the light and cause flare in the black background. Scratches on the top lens will have the same effect. The Microscope Condenser plays a critical role in image formation. Highly corrected condensers are complex and are made of a number of lenses. Like a microscope objective, a microscope condenser has a numerical aperture and it should equal or better be of the highest magnification objective being used.

Endoscope is a thin tube-like instrument that is used to look at tissues inside the body. An endoscope has a light and a lens for viewing and may have a tool to remove tissue. Endoscopes employing miniature television cameras and tiny surgical implements now allow exploration and endoscopic surgery through small incisions; such surgery is much less traumatic to the patient than traditional open surgery. The first endoscope was developed in 1806 by Philip Bozzini with his introduction of a light conductor used for the examinations of the canals and cavities of the human body. According to another source an endoscope was first introduced in 1822 by William Beaumont, an army surgeon at Mackinac Island, Michigan. The first such lights were external. Later, smaller bulbs became available making internal light possible.

The Electron Microscope (EM) is a type of scientific microscope that uses a beam of electrons to create an image of the target. Electron Microscopes function the same way as other types of microscopes, except they use electrons instead of light to create an image of specimen and gather information about its structure. Electron Microscopes were developed due to the limitations of light microscopes, which are limited by the physics of light to 500x or 1000x magnification and a resolution of 0.2 micrometers. It was developed by Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska in Germany in 1931.

Video microscopes are instruments that use digital technology to magnify images of objects. To provide superior image quality, all of them they include built-in cameras, and some of them also include high-powered lenses. Some video microscopes require viewing objects through a standard eyepiece, others provide a computer interface. There are three different types of video microscopes: student video microscopes, benchtop video microscopes, and research video microscope. Well, so say briefly, student microscopes are the smallest and least expensive, benchtop microscopes are used in industries, and can perform only a few methods at a time, and finally - research microscopes. They are large devices that weight between 30 kg and 50 kg and include multiple cameras that allow them to perform the widest range of simultaneous examinations.

Digital Microscopes are wonderful devices that will definitely enhance your microscopy. With either a compound digital microscope or a stereo digital microscope you you'll be able to capture video and images of the specimens you study. After that you will be able to easily upload these pictures on your computer, send them over email, and do whatever you want to with them. With all this modern technology and software you'll also be able to zoom and even count cells. So, experience the advantages of a digital microscope yourself!

I can definitely tell you that a microscope is a marvelous and in some way magical tool. Under a microscope a little insect becomes the most gorgeous and intricate of beasts. Believe using child microscope can serve you for the good with your child. But first of all you need to make the right choice. There are so many types of microscopes available on the optics market today. Some of them cost thousands of dollars, and will serve the purposes of a researcher. Others are used in medicine, different industries, and school labs. The least expensive in these categories are microscopes for children. When shopping for your child, don't buy a plastic toy microscope, they will only frustrate you and your child. Look also for companies that provide slides and support material together with the microscope, so that your child will have some direction in using and enjoying the device. Compound microscopes are for example used for viewing very small transparent objects. If you would like to look at larger or thicker objects, like fingers, flowers, or even rocks, you should consider a stereo microscope. Stereo microscopes are very good for kids, because they have an eyepiece for each eye.