Cell visible by own light
Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - 12:10
in Physics & Chemistry
Scientists can now “see” a single living cell made visible by its own light. A new image intensifier, which amplifies the very faint light of an individual cell in a way somewhat like the television screen makes its bright picture, has been developed. It can be made to amplify light as much as a million and a half times….George T. Reynolds of Princeton … used the image intensifier with a microscope to take pictures of Noctiluca miliaris, a tiny sea creature that gives the ocean its phosphorescent glow when present in large numbers…. The image intensifier consists of a photo-sensitive surface and a viewing screen, with five intervening membranes of aluminum oxide, each a one-hundred-thousandth of an inch thick.