Scientists have captured the first ever footage of atoms bonding at a scale around half a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. Using advanced microscopy methods, the team of UK and German researchers captured the breaking of a chemical bond between two rhenium atoms. The video shows the two atoms to the left of the footage, between 0.1 and 0.3 nanometres, appearing as black blobs as they bond and break. Atoms are ‘the building blocks of the world’ and the matter around us is made up of layers and layers of atoms – unless they’re a...