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The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three researchers, one at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry in Gottingen, one at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Virginia, and the third at Stanford.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/c...press.html

Apparently the three of them, each working independently, discovered two different (but seemingly closely related) ways for optical microscopes to resolve objects smaller than 1/2 the wavelength of visible light. Both of the methods seem to my layman's eye to involve stimulating desired molecules with lasers so that they glow, then capturing that light.

This is the difference it makes:

https://www.tumblr.com/search/Eric+Betzig

Wow, Mr Doodlebug! That's a pretty dramatic improvement. I'm impressed!

I've been kind of interested in microscopy ever since I took microbiology back in the early 1970's (prehistoric times). I always believed that the wavelength of light was the fundamental limit for resolution in light microscopes. I'd never even heard of these techniques until this Nobel was announced.