Groundbreaking Microscope Achievements Win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

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The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their light microscopy achievements.
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their light microscopy achievements.

This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for developing a microscopy method that could reach the nanodimension and reveal the inner workings of living cells at work, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today (Oct. 8).

The work of the Nobel Laureates, Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner, was "groundbreaking," according to the Swedish Academy, as it surpassed what was thought to be a physical limit in optical microscopy. In 1873, microscopist Ernst Abbe said light microscopes could never visualize with any resolution anything smaller than 0.2 micrometers, or half the wavelength of light. For comparison, an E. coli bacterial cell is about 3 micrometers long, while the influenza virus is 0.13 micrometers (130 nanometers), and the hemoglobin inside red blood cells is just 0.006 micrometers (6.5 nm) in size, according to the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center.

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Jeanna Bryner
Managing editor, Scientific American

Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.