This year marks the 70th anniversary of the organizational meeting that led to what is now the Microscopy Society of America. From its beginnings as a group of electron microscope builders and users, the Society has grown to embrace the science and application of all microscopy and microanalysis techniques used in the physical and life sciences. The Society's publishing activities evolved from the innovative annual meeting proceedings with two-page papers 45 years ago to today's popular journal, proceedings, and trade magazine published for MSA by Cambridge University Press. Below are a few important milestones* for the Society.

Perhaps you've never wondered what sounds permeated the nighttime in a Jurassic forest, but there is now a partial answer. With the good fortune to obtain a well-preserved fossil specimen, Jun-Jie Gu, Fernando Montealegre-Z, Daniel Robert, Michael Engel, Ge-Xia Qiao, and Dong Ren were able to reconstruct the sounds that would have been made by a katydid of that geologic time.

Two-photon microscopy (2PM) provides three-dimensional (3D) and four-dimensional (4D) (x, y, z, t) imaging in living specimens or under experimental physiological conditions very close to live. In conjunction with fluorescent labels, 2PM provides a powerful means of investigating the relationships between structure and function at the microscopic level that are key to understanding biological systems. This technique is able to provide time-resolved, 3D images of dynamic systems with near-diffraction-limited resolution and highly specific structural contrast.

The ability to visualize the distributions of specific proteins with a light microscope and fluorescent probes is largely responsible for our current understanding of cellular structure. A major limitation of this approach arises from the blurring effects of diffraction, which decreases resolution and limits the ability to obtain information at the nanoscale. There has been a tremendous drive to develop optical and computational methods that improve the resolution of the light microscope, and structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is one solution. This method uses patterned illumination to double both lateral and axial resolution. Nikon's N-SIM is a commercial system that integrates the most desirable features of light microscopy, specific labeling of molecules, and live cell imaging, with structured illumination. This provides the ability to achieve super resolution suitable for a range of biological applications.

Fluorescence microscopy techniques are now prevalent throughout the life sciences and many of the physical sciences. These techniques are often dependent on white light sources that have evolved from the more traditional mercury arc lamp to metal halide sources to the more recent light emitting diodes (LEDs). The newer light sources show more uniform power across the visible light spectrum, allowing for the use of fluorophores and fluorescent proteins outside of the peak wavelengths associated with the more traditional light sources.

With advancements in aberration correction, the spatial resolution of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) has been enormously improved. In addition to the reduction of the STEM probe size, a dramatic increase in the STEM probe current has been realized, leading to the routine acquisition of high-resolution elemental and chemical maps using electron energy loss spectrometry (EELS). Using EELS combined with these advanced STEM instruments, atomic-level resolution information can be obtained from various types of materials, revealing the nature of interfaces, elemental distribution, presence of defects, and much more. In addition to simple elemental composition distributions, EELS is capable of delivering information about the chemical bonding, local atomic coordination, oxidation states, band gaps, and chemical phases of a broad range of materials at the fundamental resolution limit of the property being probed. Atomic-level EELS maps of these fundamental material properties can now be obtained with the acquisition time, to a large extent, limited only by the speed of the EELS spectrometer and not by the signal being measured. The availability of fast EELS spectrometers with large angular collection efficiencies has closed the gap between the rate of signal generation in the specimen and the speed at which this signal can be detected. This significantly increases the amount of information that can be acquired using EELS. Using the most recent generation of spectrometers, EELS data can be acquired at well over 1,000 spectra per second with a high-duty cycle. Fifth-order spectral aberration correction in this generation of spectrometers allows the use of the large collection angles needed to match the increased convergence angle that Cs-probe-corrected systems present, improving collection efficiency while maintaining energy resolution. These advances, when taken together, result in a well matched source/detector system capable of recording high-energy EELS edges at atomic resolution at a rate fast enough to limit electron beam damage to the sample.

X-ray spectroscopy is a widely used and extremely sensitive analytical technique for qualitative as well as quantitative elemental analysis. Typically, high-energy-resolution X-ray spectrometers are integrated with a high-spatial-resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM) or transmission electron microscope (TEM) for X-ray microanalysis applications. The focused electron beam of the SEM or TEM excites characteristic X rays that are emitted by the sample. The integrated X-ray spectrometer can then be used to identify and quantify the elemental composition of the sample on a sub-micron length scale. This combination of energy resolution and spatial resolution makes X-ray microanalysis of great importance to the semiconductor industry.

Atom probe tomography (APT) has significantly contributed to our understanding and development of structural materials through the detailed analysis of solute behavior, cluster formation, precipitate evolution, and interfacial and grain boundary chemistry. Whether one is concerned with light alloys, Ni-based superalloys, or steels, the design objectives are similar: developing alloys with optimum properties (strength, toughness, ductility, fatigue resistance, creep strength) through controlled precipitation, grain structure, solute state, and combination of phases. Performance in service, through microstructural stability and resistance to degradation, is also a major design criterion for the development of novel materials.

Considered a child prodigy, William Rowan Hamilton could read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek at the tender age of five and had undertaken the study of at least six other languages before his twelfth birthday. The native of Dublin, Ireland, lived with and was educated by an uncle who was an Anglican priest, because his father's legal career required him to spend much of his time in England. In his youth, Hamilton was introduced to Zerah Colburn, an American mathematical prodigy who exhibited his amazing calculating dexterity for entertainment. Competitive bouts of computations between the young men apparently inspired Hamilton to increase his knowledge of mathematics, and he embarked on a course of study that included the works of Euclid, Clairaut, Lloyd, Newton, Lagrange, and Laplace. By 1822, his mathematical abilities had advanced to such an extent that he discovered an important error in Laplace's treatise Celestial Mechanics, a feat that garnered him the attention of the Royal Astronomer of Ireland, John Brinkley, who he would shortly thereafter replace.

I think most of you probably know me. I tend to be rather vocal about things, whether it be on the Microscopy Listserver or through the years on problems of facility management, so I'm going to very briefly go over some of my experiences. I direct a core facility that has independent users, has a service component, is basically life sciences, but we do imaging for everybody. They can be from civil engineering, vet school, aeronautics, chemistry…who knows what will come in the door. So, some of the challenge has been to obtain major instrumentation that is versatile enough to handle a broad, broad range of users, but is initially justified based on a critical core research group. This is integral for obtaining any type of federal funding. So, we need new instrumentation for numerous reasons.

Selected postings to the Microscopy Listserver from March 1, 2012 to April 30, 2012. Complete listings and subscription information can be obtained at http://www.microscopy.com. Postings may have been edited to conserve space or for clarity.

Following is a list of microscopy related meetings and courses. The editors would greatly appreciate input to this list via the electronic submission form under “events/other microscopy events” at the MSA webpage: www.microscopy.org. We will gladly add hypertext links to the notice on the web and insert a listing of the meeting in the next issue.

I am having a lot of trouble while getting my images focused. The image moves dramatically while focusing; it moves quite a bit even at low focus steps and at low magnifications! I am very frustrated and hope you can resolve this problem.