Posted on 01/18/2015 10:46:28 PM PST by LibWhacker
Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists examining the intricate network of brain cells that underlie sight, thought, and psychiatric disease had a running joke in the laboratory: let’s just make everything bigger. If they could simply enlarge brain cells, they reasoned, the task of mapping the circuits would be easier.
Now, they have found a way to do just that, using a technique that has shades of a 1950s science fiction movie.
But instead of spawning killer ants or a 50-foot giantess, the researchers have found a controlled way to cause a tissue sample swell to roughly four and a half times its size -- enough to make features of brain cells or cancer cells discernible under conventional microscopes.
“One of our lab’s strategies is to do the opposite of what everyone else seems to be doing,” said MIT neuroscientist Edward Boyden. “One of the ideas we were kicking around was if you make a sample big enough, could you take a picture of viruses or something else really small with your cell phone? We’re nowhere near that, but it’s the kind of thinking we’re exploring now.”
In science, the minutiae is often what counts the most and for years people have been building more capable microscopes.
In 1986, a team of scientists was awarded the Nobel Prize for improvements in microscopy, including the invention of the electron microscope, which has allowed scientists to see viruses, molecules, or the structure of an insect’s eye that wouldn’t register on a conventional light microscope. In 2014, a team of researchers shared a Nobel for a new type of optical microscopy that allows scientists to see detailed features of cells and proteins at the nanoscale.
The new technique flips the typical approach on its head...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonglobe.com ...
Yea they could use mapquest!!!
Sheesh, couldn’t they find a way to more easily fold the laundry? I hate to sound like some 1950s feminist, but are these folks really putting their effort where they are most needed?
First, we remove the skull cap. Then, we place a light sheet of tracing paper over the brain, and rub the paper with a stick of charcoal.
Instant brain map!
Send in little tiny cartographers.
Taylor Caldwell's Psychic Lives
by Jess Stearn
Easily map the brain? If they used a brain of a liberal, I would be surprised, since most don’t have brains.
You mean its true? they actually discovered one, what did they find it on?
Yeah, but we've gotta find a new Raquel Welch
This stems from a mechanistic understanding of the brain. There will be no “brain map”, because there are differences among individuals in the way the brain functions and which areas are used for which functions.
“”Yeah, but we’ve gotta find a new Raquel Welch”
I am thinking Maureen Dowd in the movie Entrapment.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
