Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 110 posts

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#11

Post by fabian2k »

The headline is potentially confusing, it doesn't mean that this is the first time individual atoms were measured, but the first time this particular method has been pushed to such a high resolution that individual atoms could be distinguished.

Cryo EM is a very hot method right now to determine the three-dimensional structure of large molecules like e.g. proteins or protein complexes. Something like 10-15 years ago the best you could get was maybe 1.5 - 2 nm (these are rough numbers from memory), the results described in the article are 0.17 nm.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#13

Post by potas »

iagovar wrote: post #9

So, pardon my ignorance, but can we finally say that atoms are particles with concrete dimensions? Last time I checked the whole field seemed measuring everything into probabilistic and statistical terms.

Not an expert, but as far as I understand it, both, i.e. atoms are ("physical") manifestations of (probabilistic) quantum fluctuations.

If I'm wrong, it would be great if someone could ELI5.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#14

Post by fabian2k »

anfractuosity wrote: post #4

I'm curious could you use AFM/STM to image molecules? I'm curious how that would compare with this approach.

You can, and it has been done. But that was with very small, flat molecules. Cryo EM can be used with very large molecules or complexes with many tens of thousands of atoms.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#15

Post by dmitrybrant »

presiozo wrote: post #7

I thought an individual atom has been imaged before, at least roughly. Anyway, this is fantastic science. I'm excited to see how imaging atoms affects our understanding of quantum mechanics and atomic structure in general.

I think they mean that this is the first time individual atoms have been imaged using this specific type of electron microscope. Individual atoms have of course been imaged as early as the 1980s using scanning tunneling microscopy. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanning_tunneling_microscope

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#16

Post by pritovido »

The_rationalist wrote: post #2

What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?

We don't know yet. That is the idea about research.

When the microscope was invented, people made the same question: What is the use of it? Just watching things we already know bigger?

That is a recurring question. So much that Aristotle created the book MetaPhysics(meta meaning different from the Physics book) with the idea that this particular book did not need to be useful to be created. It was a compilation of non useful things.

This non useful compilation helped create science as we know it.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#17

Post by criddell »

potas wrote: post #13
iagovar wrote: post #9

So, pardon my ignorance, but can we finally say that atoms are particles with concrete dimensions? Last time I checked the whole field seemed measuring everything into probabilistic and statistical terms.

Not an expert, but as far as I understand it, both, i.e. atoms are ("physical") manifestations of (probabilistic) quantum fluctuations. If I'm wrong, it would be great if someone could ELI5.

I hope somebody weighs in because ever since I read that matter is just quantum field excitations I've lost all intuition about what reality is. Everything seems to be nothing.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#18

Post by TomJansen »

pritovido wrote: post #16
The_rationalist wrote: post #2

What would be the "realistic" potential use cases?

We don't know yet. That is the idea about research. When the microscope was invented, people made the same question: What is the use of it? Just watching things we already know bigger? That is a recurring question. So much that Aristotle created the book MetaPhysics(meta meaning different from the Physics book) with the idea that this particular book did not need to be useful to be created. It was a compilation of no…

Oh please, this philosophical stuff is unnecessary. Cyro-EM is about a decade old and is just an alternative to X-Ray Crystallography for elucidating the structures of proteins. This article describes a way to improve the resolution of Cyro-EM, matching it to X-Ray Crystallography. The biggest bottleneck of X-Ray Crystallography is the production of protein crystals which is not necessary with Cyro-EM.

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#19

Post by jjoonathan »

fabian2k wrote: post #11

The headline is potentially confusing, it doesn't mean that this is the first time individual atoms were measured, but the first time this particular method has been pushed to such a high resolution that individual atoms could be distinguished. Cryo EM is a very hot method right now to determine the three-dimensional structure of large molecules like e.g. proteins or protein complexes. Something like 10-15 years ago…

Further, atomic resolution is routine in electron microscopy, it's specifically Cryo EM (a sub-technique aimed at imaging proteins, which are extremely fragile compared to, say, chunks of metal or computer chips) where the advance has happened.

This is phenomenal! The title still feels a bit sensationalized, but don't they all?

Re: Cryo-electron microscopy breaks a key barrier

#20

Post by ramijames »

criddell wrote: post #17
potas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an expert, but as far as I understand it, both, i.e. atoms are ("physical") manifestations of (probabilistic) quantum fluctuations. If I'm wrong, it would be great if someone could ELI5.

I hope somebody weighs in because ever since I read that matter is just quantum field excitations I've lost all intuition about what reality is. Everything seems to be nothing.

I'm going to lean towards everything being nothing, with everything together being a giant illusion.

But, well, I'm having one of those days. :(

Post reply on HN