Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: thedoc on 25/01/2016 16:50:02

Title: What technology is there to examine skin at high magnifications?
Post by: thedoc on 25/01/2016 16:50:02

Dr. Erik Raichle asked the Naked Scientists:
   Hello, we want to examine and image people's skin for a microscopic Mite (70um). We first saw the Mite, by accident, on Sticky Tape that we applied to a person's leg. The microscope was set at 1000x. We could barely see it at 600x. And, we could not see it at all at 400x. Do you know of a technology that we could use to examine skin at that magnification?
What do you think?

Title: Re: What technology is there to examine skin at high magnifications?
Post by: RD on 25/01/2016 18:12:13

70 μm would be new record for the smallest mite.
1000x is about the limit of what is possible with an optical-microscope.

An electron-microscope (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_microscope) has better magnification ...
http://www.sciencephoto.com/search?subtype=keywords&searchstring=SEM+mite+human