The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2014 to
Eric Betzig, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA,
Stefan W. Hell, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany and
William E. Moerner, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
“for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”
Surpassing the limitations of the light microscope
For a long time optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light. Helped by fluorescent molecules the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2014 ingeniously circumvented this limitation. Their ground-breaking work has brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension.
In what has become known as nanoscopy, scientists visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain; they can track proteins involved in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilized eggs as these divide into embryos.
It was all but obvious that scientists should ever be able to study living cells in the tiniest molecular detail. In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: it could never become better than 0.2 micrometres. Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Helland William E. Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for having bypassed this limit. Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld.
Two separate principles are rewarded. One enables the method stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, developed by Stefan Hell in 2000. Two laser beams are utilized; one stimulates fluorescent molecules to glow, another cancels out all fluorescence except for that in a nanometre-sized volume. Scanning over the sample, nanometre for nanometre, yields an image with a resolution better than Abbe’s stipulated limit.
Eric Betzig and William Moerner, working separately, laid the foundation for the second method, single-molecule microscopy. The method relies upon the possibility to turn the fluorescence of individual molecules on and off. Scientists image the same area multiple times, letting just a few interspersed molecules glow each time. Superimposing these images yields a dense super-image resolved at the nanolevel. In 2006 Eric Betzig utilized this method for the first time.
Today, nanoscopy is used world-wide and new knowledge of greatest benefit to mankind is produced on a daily basis.
More information on http://www.nobelprize.org
Official press release, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
08.10.2014
IAESTE Switzerland – all-round service for internship placements
Since its foundation in 1948, IAESTE Switzerland has been a part of an outstanding academic global exchange program. Everywhere around the world, about 4000 companies, 4000 students and 1200 universities benefit each year from the attractive IAESTE service. Indeed, in Switzerland alone, an average of 250 interns was successfully placed.
IAESTE is specialized in the placement of qualified students in technical and scientific disciplines. The program works according to the 1:1 principle: Each employer who offers a job via IAESTE creates at the same time a placement abroad for a Swiss student.
No matter if the study field is aeronautical engineering or microbiology – IAESTE will find the best candidate for each employer. It only takes the employer a few minutes to register online and to specify his required job profile. After a few clicks, he just has to wait until IAESTE makes a proposal for a suitable candidate to him. There will be no longer time-consuming reading of hundreds of application folders left.
Furthermore, IAESTE is taking care of visa and work permits and offers an international, daily increasing network from which students and employers can profit. Do you like to benefit from the expert knowledge of students and young professionals? Then register your internship workplace here: www.iaeste.ch
David Spichiger, SCS
06.10.2014
EcoChem 2014 in Basel cancelled
EcoChem, the global Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering Event, Basel, Nov 11-13 2014, is cacelled. The communication reached us on Monday as follows:
Dear Sir/Madam
Vego Ltd T/A Ecochem
We write to advise you that the directors of the above-named Company, having regard to its financial position, have decided to take steps to place the Company into creditors’ voluntary liquidation.
A meeting of the Company’s creditors, pursuant to Section 98 of the Insolvency Act 1986 has been convened for 21 October, 2014 at Holiday Inn Brent Cross, Tilling Road, Brent Cross, London, NW2 1LP at 11:00 am.
Regrettably, the forthcoming exhibition in Basel is cancelled.
If you have a claim against the company, please email your full postal address and the amount outstanding to me (). Full details of the meeting will then be sent to you.
Kind Regards
T. D. M.
Senior Insolvency Administrator
Corporate and Personal Recovery
David Spichiger, SCS
01.10.2014
SCNAT-Newsletter October 2014
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