A few years ago, a team of scientists at EPFL’s Laboratory of Nanoscale Biology, headed by Aleksandra Radenovic in the School of Engineering, developed an algorithm that can estimate a microscope’s resolution in just a few seconds based on a single image. The algorithm’s result indicates how closely a microscope is operating to its full potential. This could be particularly useful for the automated microscopes that have started appearing in research labs. The team’s findings have just been published in Nature Methods.

The scientists used Fourier’s transform as the basis for their algorithm, but they modified it so as to extract as much information as possible from a single image.

The results indicates how closely a microscope is operating to its full potential. The algorithm performs the calculation in just a few seconds and generates a single number. “Researchers can compare this number with the microscope’s maximum possible resolution to see whether the instrument can work even better or modify the experimental conditions and observe how the resolution evolves” says Adrien Descloux, the study’s lead author. (1)

We want to see better. We want to see everything.

So we magnify.

Until we see all the details.

And more.

And more.

And more!

Pushing it to the limit! To see everything!

Until we can distinguish nothing anymore!

Isn’t it funny? The more we analyze the cosmos the more we reach absolute zero. At the end, the point is a circle with zero radius. (source) At the end, in the midst of our greatest triumph, we will see nothing.

Ghosts casting shadows…

In a cosmos without any light…

Except the light we bring on our own…