Contact: Bob Ratliff
Where can you find the great detectives? Literary tradition has them in the dark mansions of the English moors and the palm-lined streets of Los Angeles.
While Sherlock Holmes and Phillip Marlowe remain among the greatest sleuths of fiction, they would have trouble matching the real-life investigations of scientists at Mississippi State University's Electron Microscope Center.
The center's equipment--two scanning electron microscopes, two transmission electron microscopes and a special laser-scanning microscope--provides the ultimate in detailed views of everything from animal and plant tissue to stress-fractured metal. They can provide magnification as low as 10 times and as high as 500,000 times, said center coordinator Kay Nevels.
"The scanning electron microscopes provide high resolution images of the surfaces of biological and non-biological specimens," she said. "They allow researchers to examine even the smallest pollen grains for surface details, or to study such varied materials as ceramics, metals and fiber optic cable."
The transmission electron microscopes reveal the infrastructure of cells that make up plant and animal tissue. They are important diagnostic tools for veterinarians looking for agents that cause disease in livestock, poultry and catfish, Nevels explained.
The confocal laser-scanning microscope provides three-dimensional images of biological specimens, metals and other materials through layer-by-layer scanning.
Jointly administered by the College of Veterinary Medicine and the university's Office of Research, the center offers both credit and non-credit courses in electron microscopy. The facility also is available on a fee basis to private clients both on and off campus.
Among various off-campus users are Mississippi industries that need the specialized images only the microscope center can provide.
In one case, a North Mississippi manufacturer of nylon parts used in automobile suspension struts turned to MSU chemical engineer Nancy Losure when it was having a problem with defective parts. Losure, who routinely works with the state's plastics industries, used a fine-tooth saw to cut sections from the failed parts.
She then took the sections to the microscope center for examination. Photos made under the microscope enabled Losure and the manufacturer's staff to determine the cause of the parts' failure almost instantly.
"Materials scientists need to see what they are working with," Losure said. "An electron microscope allows that because the magnification is much greater than the 1,000 times magnification provided by the light microscopes found in most labs on campus."
Losure said an additional advantage of having an electron microscope center on campus is the trained technicians who are available to assist university researchers and industry clients.
For additional information on the Electron Microscope Center at Mississippi State, telephone Kay Nevels at (601) 325-3017 or e-mail at nevels@emcenter.msstate.edu.
Also, visit the center's website at http://www.msstate.edu/Dept/EMC/.