The video discusses the advancement in microscopy technology that allows scientists to see objects so small they're not even microscopic. This is achieved using a technique called NanoScopy (Nanoscale super-Resolution Microscopy), which surpasses the previous limit of the optical microscope.
The video begins by explaining how the human eye perceives visible light, which is a tiny slice of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, using this light to see objects that are smaller than microscopic was considered impossible due to a physics-based limit.
However, this changed a few years ago when scientists came up with a way to let us see past this limit. They explained how a microscope works like a magnifying glass, enlarging an object in your eye to be seen.
The video then delves into the concept of light as both a particle and a wave. The waves of light can diffract, or bend, when they hit an obstacle. The light doesn't look like a single source anymore, and this is the limit for our optical microscopes.
The video then discusses the work of a German physicist named Ernst Abba, who discovered this limit in 1873. He found that if two sources of light were really tiny and close together, they would be unresolvable as two objects. This limit was named the Abbe limit.
The video then talks about how scientists surpassed this limit, allowing the best optical microscopes to see single molecules. This was achieved by using fluorescent markers on molecules that responded with a glow to laser light. Over time, scientists could reveal individual molecules and create snapshots of them, locating them in XY and Z coordinates.
The video then talks about the Nobel Prize-winning scientists who came up with two different nanomicroscopy methods in 2014. These methods allow scientists to resolve images in the tens of nanometers range, ten times better than anything a 19th-century scientist could have predicted.
The video then mentions how Novartis, a global pharmaceutical company, is using these techniques for research. They are creating time-lapse videos of individual proteins moving through neurons, providing a three-dimensional rendering of the complex nanoscale biology happening inside a single cell.
The video concludes by discussing how these techniques could lead to a potential treatment for diseases like Alzheimer's, which is associated with the accumulation of tau proteins. The video also mentions the existence of electron microscopes, which can see even smaller objects, but these are not practiced in nanoscopy.
The video was created in partnership with Novartis and emphasizes the importance of science and technology in addressing societal challenges.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. The video is brought to you in partnership with Novartis.
2. The human eye can perceive human-life-sized objects using visible light.
3. The best optical microscopes can magnify images tens, hundreds, or over a thousand times.
4. The limit of optical microscopes is due to the waviness of light, which acts as both a particle and a wave.
5. Light has a diffraction limit, which is the minimum distance between two objects that can be resolved as separate.
6. The Abbe limit, discovered by Ernst Abbe in 1873, states that the minimum distance between two objects that can be resolved is half the wavelength of the light used.
7. The Abbe limit means that optical microscopes cannot resolve objects smaller than 200 nanometers.
8. Scientists have developed new techniques to surpass the Abbe limit, including single molecule microscopy and stimulated emission depletion microscopy.
9. These techniques use lasers to excite individual molecules and create 3D images of the nanoscale world.
10. Novartis is using these techniques to study the progression of Alzheimer's disease at the protein level.
11. The tau protein is associated with Alzheimer's disease and can be studied using nano imaging techniques.
12. Researchers are making progress in understanding the disease and may potentially develop a treatment.
13. Electron microscopes can see even smaller objects than optical microscopes, with magnification of up to 10 million times.
14. Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company that uses science-based innovation to address healthcare issues.
15. The company discovers and develops breakthrough treatments and finds new ways to deliver them to people in need.