Some say it looks like a rocket ready for take-off. Others say a pagoda. Either description seems more fitting for the tiered and towering 13-metre structure than the diminutive word 'microscope'. The electron microscope at Osaka University in Japan is the most powerful of its kind. The technology behind it is nearly 80 years old, and the device itself has been in operation since 1995. But scientists there say that they are only just starting to show what this monstrous machine can do for biology.rnTransmission electron microscopes shoot out a beam of electrons, which pass through some parts of a sample and are scattered by others. The emerging beam carries data that can be used to map out the structures it has transited.rnBecause electron beams have a much shorter wavelength than visible light, they can easily resolve structures just a few nanometres across, far beyond the resolution of a conventional light microscope and better for viewing the details of cells' internal and external topography.
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