joshbyard:

Researchers Using Quantum “Squeezed Light” to Image The Insides of Cells

Conventional optical imaging is limited by the process of diffraction, the way light spreads out when it passes an object. The amount of diffraction depends, in part, on natural uncertainties in the position of the photons. Physicists think of this uncertainty as quantum noise. 

In recent years, however, they’ve have worked out how to minimise the amount quantum noise by carefully manipulating the way photons are created. They call the resulting photons “squeezed light” and there has been no little excitement over their potential to beat the conventional diffraction limit in all kinds of applications.

One obvious use is in cellular imaging where squeezed light offers biologists a clear advantage for exploring cellular processes. Various groups have used squeezed light to make pioneering measurements inside cells. But the process of imaging to reveal spatial variations in the structure of a cell, has so far eluded them.

(via First Quantum-Enhanced Images of a Living Cell | MIT Technology Review)

npr:

Scientists Clone Human Embryos To Make Stem Cells : Shots

The achievement is a long-sought step toward harnessing the potential power of such cells to treat diseases. But the discovery raises ethical concerns because it brings researchers closer to cloning humans, and involves creating and then destroying human embryos for research purposes.

Graphic Source: Mitalipov Lab/OHSUGraphic
Credit: Adapted for NPR by Alyson Hurt

Marisa can attest that this is almost the only thing I’ve consistently talked about for the past 4 years, and she even made fun of me for it publicly in the yearbook.