Most trade magazines have an annual schedule of featured topics slated for certain issues. This publishing calendar helps readers, authors, and advertisers know in advance that a certain topic will be emphasized at least once a year. For Microscopy Today, the March, July, and November issues will feature, respectively, microanalysis, light microscopy, and scanning probe microscopy. The other three issues during the year will contain the usual variety of topics concerning all microscopy methods.

The Microscopy Today Innovation Awards were established to honor innovative microscopy-related products and methods that appeared in the previous year. Winning products and methods are selected on the basis of their importance and usefulness to the microscopy community. The innovations most likely to win are those that provide better, faster, or entirely new methods of analysis by some type of microscope or microanalytical instrument.

The feature article in this issue is a prelude to the Microbeam Analysis Society (MAS) Topical Conference on electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) to be held at the University of Wisconsin, May 24–26, 2010. The popularity of the EBSD technique is growing rapidly. This analytical method is capable of both identifying crystalline phases and determining the orientation of grains and second phases. Phase analysis by EBSD combined with elemental analysis by x-ray emission spectrometry provides the SEM with extraordinary analytical power. Maps of crystal grain orientations are widely used in metallurgical and geological research.

Microscopy and Microanalysis, the sister publication of this magazine, is currently the #1 microscopy journal in the world, according to the Thomson-Reuters-ISI organization that ranks scientific journals on the basis of Impact Factor. This ranking is based on our Impact Factor of 2.992 for the year 2008 (the most recent data available). This is the culmination of a long climb from the journal's beginning in 1995.

This is the seventh issue of Microscopy Today in its new format. The re-styled magazine has received favorable comments from both readers and advertisers. Article submission has increased, and many authors have used Microscopy Today to highlight and summarize their work published in other venues. In this issue we begin two new occasional departments. One is called “Microscopy Protocols.” I invite readers to contribute protocols and procedures useful for microscopists and microanalysts. The other new department is called “Your Point of View” where we will publish the results of periodic surveys concerning the microscopy and microanalysis communities.

In 2010, the world's largest annual microscopy meeting and instrument exhibition, Microscopy & Microanalysis, will be held August 1–5 in Portland, Oregon. This delightful meeting location was the site for our successful 1999 M&M meeting, and we return to Portland by popular demand.

All cells have the ability to synthesize and secrete proteins. Although many details of this process are well-known, Martin Kampmann and Günter Blobel recently highlighted two “landmark papers” that used cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) to obtain information at subnanometer resolution, which provided direct visualization of nascent polypeptide chains in the tunnel with ribosomes . It is known that the signal peptide (the first few amino acids on the amino terminal that do not become part of the final polypeptide) emerges from a ribosome and engages the signal recognition particle (SRP) in the cytoplasm, and this complex is directed to the SRP receptor on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The SRP is released, the signal peptide enters the protein-conducting channel (PCC), and the nascent polypeptide chain (that will become the protein) enters the lumen of the ER.

Fossil arachnids—especially those dating from the Carboniferous period, 360–299 million years ago—are often found in mines or quarries within concretions of siderite (FeCO3). Most of the methods to study these fossils are either destructive or damaging to the specimens and are limited in their resolution, thereby limiting the information that can be derived from the fossil. In an elegant study, Russell Garwood, Jason Dunlop, and Mark Sutton have demonstrated that X-ray micro-tomography (XMT) can reveal hitherto unseen details in such fossils without damaging the specimens.

The most widely accepted model of learning at the level of the cell involves associative synaptic plasticity in brain neurons that include cortical pyramidal cells (PC). To oversimplify, for a neuron to “learn” from information coming into it, electrical events need to occur in a fairly precise pattern throughout the cell membrane.

Some of the receptors on the surface of cardiac muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) mediate the response of these cells to catecholamines by causing the production of the common second messenger cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). An example of such receptors are the β1- and β2-adrenergic receptors (βARs) that are heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein)-coupled receptors. Selective stimulation of these two receptor subtypes leads to distinct physiological and pathophysiological responses, but their precise location on the surface of cardiomyocytes has not been correlated with these responses. In an ingenious combination of techniques, Viacheslav Nikolaev, Alexey Moshkov, Alexander Lyon, Michele Miragoli, Pavel Novak, Helen Paur, Martin Lohse, Yuri Korchev, Sian Harding, and Julia Gorelik have mapped the function of these receptors for the first time.

It is well known that females of some insects mate with more than one male before the ova are fertilized. The post-copulatory behavior of the sperm has been studied for decades, but until now there has not been a method to definitively determine the “ownership” of sperm within the female genital tract. In a very clever study, Mollie Manier, John Belote, Kirstin Berben, David Novikov, Will Stuart, and Scott Pitnick offer an answer to this dilemma .

Motile cilia are organelles that contain amazing molecular machines that bend each cilium in a rhythmic and coordinated movement. This allows a liquid film, perhaps with particles embedded within, to move in a specific direction. The classic example is the cilia of the respiratory passages that move a layer of debris-carrying mucus out of the lungs. When this mechanism is not working properly, recurrent pulmonary infections result. The classic example of this is immotile cilia syndrome that results in chronic bronchitis and related problems. However, no sensory function has been assigned to these classic motile cilia until now (although nodal cilia have both mechanical activity and sensory functions). Alok Shah, Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Thomas Moninger, Joel Kline, and Michael Welsh have demonstrated sensory receptors on motile cilia for the first time.

In this paper, a new way for visualization of unstained transparent specimens is described, which is based on bright-field imaging and promises an improved resolution and contrast. The final results can be compared with conventional phase contrast images, and the new method may lead to superior results in most specimens.

Over the last two decades, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) has emerged as the tool of choice to image living organisms in a near-physiological environment. Whereas fluorescence microscopy techniques allow labeling and tracking of components inside cells and the observation of dynamic processes, AFM is mainly a surface technique that can be operated on a wide range of substrates including biological samples. AFM enables extraction of topographical, mechanical and chemical information from these samples.

Over the past decade, deconvolution of 3D light optical microscopy data has advanced from an obscure technique employed by only a few dedicated souls to a routine method that is now available with all modern microscope systems. Dramatic increases in computer power, algorithm sophistication, and software ease of use have brought the power of deconvolution to the general microscope user, and processing large 3D datasets is no longer a rate-limiting step in the imaging process.

Theoretically, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is compatible with three different types of phase plate: thin-film, electrostatic, and magnetic. However, designing functional phase plates has been an arduous process that has suffered from unavoidable technical obstacles such as phase-plate charging and difficulties associated with micro-fabrication of electrostatic and magnetic phase plates. This review discusses phase-contrast schemes that allow visualization of transparent objects with high contrast. Next it deals with recent studies on biological applications ranging from proteins and viruses to whole cells. Finally, future prospects for overcoming the problem of phase-plate charging and for designing the next generation of phase-plates to solve the problem of electron loss inherent in thin-film phase plates are discussed.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) can produce striking three-dimensional images of biological cells and tissues with submicron resolution of surface morphology. Such cell surfaces are often complex blends of folds, extrusions, and pockets that may be necessary in the positioning of specific molecules within interaction range of each other. Thus, surface changes can have a spatial control over some molecular functions, and identification of select molecules at distinct morphological locations becomes critical to our understanding of total cell function.