tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/scientific-instruments-8656/articles
Scientific instruments – The Conversation
2017-12-11T14:58:23Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/88840
2017-12-11T14:58:23Z
2017-12-11T14:58:23Z
The speculum finally gets redesigned – by women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198558/original/file-20171211-27689-1bwcnfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The old-style speculum – soon to be replaced.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/662645254?src=xAdTjsxya3dyoVPfY-uwkA-1-44&size=medium_jpg">Bangkoker/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The vaginal speculum – that creepy looking metal device used to examine the vagina and cervix – has remained largely unchanged since the 19th century. But a team of female designers in San Francisco is looking to give the unfriendly implement a new design. </p>
<p>In an interview with <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-speculum-finally-gets-a-modern-redesign/">Wired</a>, the designers described the hazards of the current one as the noise, the temperature and the feeling inside. Their prototype, by contrast, is made of three leaves that open silently. And it’s covered in silicone – a warmer material than steel.</p>
<p>James Marion Sims, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/statues-of-medical-racist-who-experimented-on-slaves-should-also-be-taken-down-82704">controversial</a> “father of gynaecology”, is credited with inventing the modern speculum in the mid-19th century. However, the type with two or more metal blades and a screw mechanism that opens them so that the vaginal walls are forced apart, goes back at least to the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1139583/">Roman Empire</a>. Resistance to using these implements also has a long history. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198559/original/file-20171211-27705-10rhge0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">English physician Marshall Hall regarded the speculum as French.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36310324">Wellcome images/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>There was some unease in the ancient world about using any instruments to see inside the body. The ancient doctor was supposed to rely on all his senses, not enhance them. An ancient Greek description of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fQaGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=haemorrhoids+5+hippocrates&source=bl&ots=PWdliV6IBv&sig=5xpIoIv_0d29ReVoqGiyXL-sxig&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6iZ6H8vrXAhUmIsAKHbWqCSQQ6AEIQTAD#v=onepage&q=haemorrhoids%205%20hippocrates&f=false">haemorrhoids</a> made the point that an instrument could flatten a lump and obscure the very problem the doctor was supposed to be seeing for himself. </p>
<p>The ethics of inserting an instrument into the vagina made the speculum even more controversial. In Sims’ own time, the English regarded the speculum as French and thought it risked “dulling the edge of virgin modesty, and the degradation of pure minds, of the daughters of England”, as the English physiologist, <a href="http://bit.ly/2BDYhf4">Marshall Hall</a>, phrased it in 1850. </p>
<h2>Making sense of ancient medicine</h2>
<p>Medical instruments used in ancient times are difficult to understand, as surgeon John Stewart Milne makes clear in <a href="https://archive.org/details/b21274150">Surgical instruments in Greek and Roman times</a>. Ancient medical writers named and described various instruments, but it isn’t easy to match the texts to the objects that archaeologists find. </p>
<p>Many such objects look a lot like something we have today, so we assume they were used in the same way. But things weren’t so simple. A tool to examine the rectum or vagina could also be used to hold open a wound while a foreign body was extracted. </p>
<p>Sims’ speculum was based on bending a metal spoon, and one of the items almost always found in sets of medical instruments from ancient Rome is a spoon. Sometimes it has a probe or hook at the other end. </p>
<p>The ancient Greek rectal dilator (“katopter”) may originally have been two spoons, one held in each hand. A more specialised tool for looking into the rectum was the <a href="http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display?id=92151">small dioptrion</a>. We assume this is the two-bladed instrument where you compress the handles to open the blades. Many of these have been found. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198562/original/file-20171211-27693-18xn91t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Roman bronze rectal dioptrion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/hommedia.ashx?id=95695&size=Large">© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>They were possibly also used for gynaecological examination. In the third century AD, <a href="https://archive.org/stream/b21274150#page/148">Leonidas of Alexandria</a> wrote that you use them to open up the rectum “as we do the female vagina”. It isn’t clear here whether he means the same instrument was used, or just the same method. </p>
<p>The large dioptrion used for the vagina looked very different. Like the modern speculum, it had a screw mechanism to open up between two and four valves: <a href="http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/hist-images/romansurgical/vaginalSpeculum1a_e.jpg">this one</a> has three.</p>
<p>Ancient medical writers were perhaps more sensitive to their women patients than we’d expect. They had different sizes of instrument depending on the age of the patient. The set of medical instruments found in the Casa del Medico Nuovo in Pompeii includes a uterine speculum but also a small dioptrion. </p>
<p>Medical texts recommend using a probe to check the length of the vagina before deciding which size to use. <a href="https://archive.org/stream/b21274150#page/150">Muscio</a>, the supposed author of the Genecia, a treatise on gynaecology based on the work of Soranus and dating to around 500AD, says they put oil on a speculum first and warmed it up before insertion. </p>
<p>The obstetric forceps developed by <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TF5BDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT4&lpg=PT4&dq=helen+king+obstetrics+midwifery&source=bl&ots=amTUNL6rQa&sig=I5g5jTOPyK7WsfgO6tvBPiJtPKE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNl8-xyPrXAhVDAcAKHYoACOkQ6AEISDAH#v=onepage&q=clinking&f=false">William Smellie</a> in 1748 were of wood rather than metal, so that they would “appear less terrible to the Women … make no clinking noise when used”. Because the wood could easily break, Smellie then tried steel forceps with the blades covered in leather, but these soaked up fluids and smelled bad. We now know that they would spread infection.</p>
<p>The metallic noises and the coldness of the speculum and other devices used in gynaecology have long been a problem. But there were attempts to reduce the unpleasantness. It’s not clear how much these attempts were about the need to attract patients, and, certainly, not all innovations were in women’s interests. But a new speculum, designed by women for women, is a refreshing break with the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Women, rejoice. The speculum is getting a friendly makeover.
Helen King, Professor Emerita, Classical Studies, The Open University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79610
2017-07-03T13:54:05Z
2017-07-03T13:54:05Z
Tiny ‘micro drop’ chemical reactors are helping to revolutionise scientific experiments
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176591/original/file-20170703-32638-nzjnlf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Science is getting smaller. From <a href="https://theconversation.com/folding-graphene-like-origami-may-allow-us-to-wear-sensors-in-our-skin-45346?sr=2">two-dimensional new materials</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-living-computers-to-nano-robots-how-were-taking-dna-beyond-genetics-60580?sr=1">to nano-robots</a>, many of the latest advances are being made at scales impossible to see with the human eye. </p>
<p>The latest technique to shake things up at the micro level is a way to trap and study individual living cells to try to understand why they malfunction when diseased. Until now, scientists have done this with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22767244">electrode “microtraps”</a> and <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/288/5463/113.full.pdf?ck=nck">highly complex networks of channels</a> carved into plastic chips.</p>
<p>But now there’s a way to analyse up to millions of cells simultaneously by putting them inside tiny water-in-oil droplets <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16511628">not much bigger than the cells themselves</a>. This could massively speed up efforts to identify diseased cells, find new drug molecules or new ways to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18651063">diagnose disease</a>.</p>
<p>The days when scientists carried out experiments by mixing chemicals in large glass flasks are long gone. Nowadays, tests are performed in trays punctuated by a number of “microwell” holes that mean just a few microlitres (millionths of a litre) of each sample is needed. The difficulty with going much smaller is that it’s hard to move liquid around at this scale because really tiny <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20559601">drops tend to clump together or evaporate</a>.</p>
<p>Although the potential of encapsulating single cells was identified as <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v181/n4620/abs/1811419a0.html">early as the 1950s</a>, the droplet field has really picked up pace with the emergence of fabrication technologies borrowed from the semiconductor industry.</p>
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<p>The microdroplet solution is to separate and protect each picolitre (one trillionth of a litre) drop of water by wrapping it in oil. To do this, you feed the water and oil through tiny tubes in a “microfluidic” device and force them to meet at a cross junction where they combine into individual microdroplets. This can create <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23805985">many thousands of identical tiny chemical reactors a second</a>.</p>
<p>Other microfluidic devices can be used to combine, split or sort the droplets, just as a scientist might do at a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28390246">larger scale with a pipette</a> Specially formulated chemicals at the interface between the water and oil keep the droplets <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10392">stable for days at a time</a>.</p>
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<h2>Finding a cellular needle in a haystack</h2>
<p>Droplets are an attractive proposition for tackling needle-in-a-haystack problems, such as isolating very rare cells with a unique mutation or molecular make-up. For example, cells from a tumour can sometimes break off and circulate through the bloodstream, potentially causing cancer elsewhere in the body (metastasis). Finding a way to detect these circulating tumour cells (CTCs) would essentially provide a blood test update on the state of a patient’s cancer. But they are very hard to find because they exist at concentrations as low as <a href="http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n9/full/nrc3686.html">one per 10 ml of blood</a>. Using a microdroplet technique could allow doctors to quickly comb through the cells from a patient’s blood sample <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/27311775/">to find a CTC</a>.</p>
<p>Microdroplet techniques can even help confine DNA molecules together with the proteins produced by specific genes, such as biocatalysts or enzymes that help enable certain chemical reactions in a living organism. This means we can find rare DNA mutations that result in more efficient biocatalysts, a process called <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/E7383.full.pdf">directed evolution</a>. This is helpful because many biocatalysts are responsible for reactions needed for industrial processes, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367593117300418">from washing using detergent powders to making biofuels</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the process of screening gene libraries with millions of encoded members is becoming more and more routine. Another promising application is to use environmental samples in the search for molecules that could be used as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10008">antibiotics or anti-cancer agents</a>. Likewise, researchers can assess collections of antibodies with the hope of finding <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/109/29/11570.long">one that can function as a drug</a>.</p>
<p>Microdroplet techniques do have their limits. For example, small molecules can sometimes diffuse through the oil phase making droplets in effect leaky compartments. Yet there are still many potential advances to be made. For example, one can envision truly <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-is-using-the-genetics-of-disease-to-make-drugs-better-30747">personalised medicine</a> where many different drugs are rapidly tested against many different patient cells to find which one is best to prescribe. Microdroplets have had just a decade of use. Think of what they could achieve in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fabrice Gielen is co-founder and director of Drop-Tech Ltd.</span></em></p>
Why do one big experiment when you can do millions of tiny ones?
Fabrice Gielen, Research Fellow in Microfluidics, University of Exeter
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/62265
2016-07-12T15:01:33Z
2016-07-12T15:01:33Z
Underwater microscope provides new views of ocean-floor sea creatures in their natural setting
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129905/original/image-20160708-24101-1idp685.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=69%2C25%2C2257%2C1348&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fluorescent image of the coral _Pocillopora damicornis_. The field of view is approximately 4.1 x 3.4 mm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <em>Homo sapiens</em> view of our world is all a matter of perspective, and we need to remember that we’re among the larger creatures on Earth. At around 1.7 meters in length, we’re much closer in size to the biggest animals that have ever lived – 30-meter-long blue whales – than the viruses and bacteria that are less than one-millionth our size.</p>
<p>Our relative size and their invisibility to our naked eye makes it easy to forget that there are vastly more of those little guys than us – not just in number, but also in mass and volume. And they’re vital to the health of our planet. For example, every other breath of oxygen you take is <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8337.html">courtesy of the photosynthetic bacteria</a> that live in the ocean.</p>
<p>As early microscope pioneer <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/leeuwenhoek.html">Antony Van Lewenhook</a> discovered approximately 350 years ago, these little “animalcules” are in <a href="http://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/Microbe-Hunters/9780156027779">almost every nook and cranny</a> you can think of on Earth. But until now, we haven’t been able to study most microscopic forms of ocean life in their native marine habitats at sufficient resolution to discern many of their miniature features. This is important, as there are thousands of different millimeter-sized underwater creatures we previously couldn’t study unless they were removed and brought to the lab.</p>
<p><a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/ncomms12093">Our new Benthic Underwater Microscope</a> (BUM) changes that. In building our underwater microscopes, we are inspired by <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/419565a">oceanographer Victor Smetacek’s question</a> of whether an in situ computerized telemicroscope could “do for microbial ecology what Galileo’s telescope did for astronomy.” Simply put, we hope so. Underwater microscopy can help scientists tackle research questions in new ways. Using the BUM, we’ve already seen some amazing new coral behaviors.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130127/original/image-20160712-9271-17lgwas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A glimpse of what we’ve been missing: <em>Pocillopora</em> polyps: a 2.8 x 2.4 mm field of view.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<h2>Underwater optics</h2>
<p>When researchers bring marine samples back to the lab, it’s impossible to exactly mimic the environment they came from – what we observe might not perfectly reflect creatures’ real lives. Better, then, to bring the lab to the ocean.</p>
<p>For nearly five years now, our group has been <a href="http://jaffeweb.ucsd.edu">tackling the technical challenges of underwater microscopy</a> with the goal of recording images of marine life at these miniature scales. We aim to explore microscopic life in a variety of natural settings via underwater imaging and video systems.</p>
<p>Previously, there was no technology available to see these tiny things from several centimeters away. The distance is important because we needed to put our components in a waterproof bottle and look out through an underwater port – placing us a bit away from our subjects. Fortunately, with the commercial appearance of our hoped-for “long working distance” lenses, miniature cameras and efficient LED lights, we were able to assemble several underwater microscopes.</p>
<p>There were some technical challenges to overcome. We had to figure out how to illuminate a very tiny area while simultaneously focusing a lens on precisely the same spot. We also weren’t sure we could achieve the mechanical stability necessary to keep our system still enough to get great images. And it was also paramount for a diver to be able to control the system via a computer interface.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">BUM has a high magnification lens surrounded by focused LED lights and a companion computer with ceramic buttons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>After 18 months of work, we’d invented the first underwater microscope that a diver could carry into the field and use to take pictures of seafloor inhabitants at nearly micrometer resolution. Our instrument allows us to clearly see features as small as one-hundredth of a millimeter underwater. An additional feature, a squishy electrically tunable lens, gives us the ability to rapidly focus on the objects that we are imaging. This allows us to capture all parts of an object with substantial three-dimensional relief in focus.</p>
<p>The final system consists of two housings: one for the camera, lights and the lenses, the other for a computer controlling the camera along with a live diver interface and data storage. </p>
<p>After we finished testing the instrument in California, we traveled to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel, to work with colleagues at the <a href="http://www.assemblemarine.org/interuniversity-institute-for-marine-sciences-eilat/">Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences</a>. With their help, we set up our system in the Red Sea’s well-preserved coral reefs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130032/original/image-20160711-9281-1r1zmj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Mullen deploys the BUM during coral reef studies in Maui.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emily L. A. Kelly/UCSD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In deploying the instrument, we use an undersea tripod to position the camera housing while resting the computer housing on the seafloor. We then control the system’s parameters through a series of computer screens that culminate in recording the scene.</p>
<h2>A newly visible underwater world</h2>
<p>On our test dives, we saw with unprecedented detail a strange behavior of coral polyps, the tiny individual animals that make up a coral colony. In a never-before-seen action, the polyps periodically embraced their neighbors, potentially to share food, in what we called polyp kissing.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BglYxaEyTLI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In situ time series video of interaction between the coral Platygyra and four different stimuli. In each frame Platygyra is on the left: top-left Galaxea, top right Stylophora, bottom left mesh net filled with Artemia, and bottom right another colony of Platygyra. Images were captured at night with red light at a frame rate of 1 FPS. The playback is at a speed that is 480 times faster. (Courtesy Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Not all of the interactions were so amorous; when we put different kinds of corals side by side, microscopic warfare broke out. We were surprised to see that at the same proximity, corals of the same species were at peace. This is shown in the lower right corner of the video – the two <em>Platygyra</em> corals are not fighting.</p>
<p>The polyp communities that share connective tissue work together to ward off predators. They’re not hostile to other colonies of their own species. But when confronted with foreigners, or when aiming to expand their territory, they can extrude their digestive organs and rub a digestive enzyme all over the bodies of their enemies, as seen in the videos. We hypothesize, as others have, that <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/umrsmas/bullmar/1985/00000036/00000002/art00006">some set of chemicals they emit</a> mediates the corals’ awareness of each other.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130186/original/image-20160712-9289-1baveyr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=631&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The BUM was able to document algae beginning to colonize the surface of bleached corals that were still alive. 2.82 x 2.36 mm field-of-view.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrew D. Mullen/UCSD</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a further investigation, this time in Hawaii, we used the Benthic Underwater Microscope to view the sad consequences of a large-scale bleaching event. For the first time in a natural setting, we examined how algae colonize and overgrow bleached corals at the microscale.</p>
<h2>Where to focus in the future</h2>
<p>Now that we have this new instrument, hopefully it will open up a whole new realm of scientific inquiry. We imagine researchers will be eager to point the underwater microscope at kelp forests, rocky reefs, sea grass beds and mangroves.</p>
<p>For instance, we’re interested in exploring how kelp propagate as microscopic baby kelp seeds land on rocky areas of the seafloor. Their success and density is important for understanding how <a href="http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/kelp.html">kelp forests</a> emerge.</p>
<p>And there are plenty of other questions about coral reefs that the BUM could help investigate. How do coral diseases progress? What happens on a microscopic level when coral polyps bleach? How do corals deal with sedimentation and shed sand? How do coral larvae grow and how are they recruited by a colony? How do corals and algae compete? </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130033/original/image-20160711-9289-hp1vyl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Have BUM, will travel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emily L. A. Kelly/UCSD</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the new ability to see and record these processes happening in real-time in the ocean, researchers could make some interesting new discoveries. As such, we have made our systems available to the scientific community – we plan to aid researchers by traveling to their work sites and taking photos and videos.</p>
<p>And we’re always thinking about further improvements – developing a next generation of underwater instruments that have higher frame rates and even better resolution. In addition, there is one enchanting frontier to think about: underwater microscopic virtual reality – an immersive new way for scientists and everyone else to explore the wonders of the oceans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jules Jaffe receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the W.M. Keck Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Mullen has received funding from the National Science Foundation, Link Ocean Engineering & Instrumentation Ph.D. Fellowship, UC Regents PhD Fellowship.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tali Treibitz receives funding from Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (Israel), Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy, and Water Resources (Israel), German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development. She is affiliated with the University of Haifa. </span></em></p>
Could this new technology do for the microscopic marine world what the first telescopes did for the heavens above?
Jules Jaffe, Research Oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Andrew Mullen, Ph.D. Student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego
Tali Treibitz, Head of Marine Imaging Lab, University of Haifa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/38696
2015-03-12T14:45:10Z
2015-03-12T14:45:10Z
Number-crunching Higgs boson: meet the world’s largest distributed computer grid
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74660/original/image-20150312-13508-1tqmvho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The CERN datacentre is the ground zero, but only part, of a worldwide computing grid</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maximillien Brice/CERN</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s largest science experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, has potentially delivered one of physics’ “Holy Grails” in the form of the <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/higgs-boson">Higgs boson</a>. Much of the science came down to one number – 126, the Higgs boson’s mass as measured in gigaelectronvolts. But this three-digit number rested upon something very much larger and more complicated: the more than 60,000 trillion bytes (<a href="http://www.lhc-closer.es/1/3/12/0">60 petabytes</a>) of data produced by colliding subatomic particles in four years of experiments, and the enormous computer power needed to make sense of it all.</p>
<p>There is no single supercomputer at CERN responsible for this task. Aside from anything else, the political faffing that would have ensued from having to decide where to build such a machine would have slowed scientific progress. The actual solution is technically, and politically, much more clever: a <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/computing/worldwide-lhc-computing-grid">distributed computing grid</a> spread across <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/computing/grid-system-tiers">academic facilities around the world</a>.</p>
<h2>Many hands make lighter work</h2>
<p>This solution is the <a href="http://wlcg.web.cern.ch/">Worldwide LHC Computing Grid</a> (WLCG), the world’s largest distributed computing grid spread over 174 facilities in 40 countries. By distributing the computational workload around the planet, the vast torrents of precious particle data streaming from the collider can be delivered, processed, and pored over by thousands of physicists regardless of location or time of day or night. </p>
<p>CERN’s datacentre is considered Tier 0 and is linked by <a href="https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/LHCOPN/WebHome">dedicated fast fibre-optic links</a> to 15 Tier 1 facilities in Europe and the US, and <a href="http://gstat-wlcg.cern.ch/apps/topology/">a further 160 Tier 2 facilities</a> around the world. At Tier 0 the rate of data throughput hits around 10GB/s – about the equivalent of filling two DVDs every second. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=643&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74649/original/image-20150312-13499-18z2fcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK universities linked up to the GridPP.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GridPP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the first “season” of experiments on the LHC, now known as Run 1, the WLCG used up to 485,000 computer processing cores to crunch its way through around 2M sets of calculations a day. Around 10% of this number-crunching was performed by the <a href="http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/about/">GridPP Collaboration</a>, the UK’s contribution to the WLCG funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Today Tier 0 is processing around <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/computing">one million billion bytes</a> (a petabyte, or 1PB) every day – equivalent to about 210,000 DVDs.</p>
<p>But the grid has grown into something more - an expert community that has tirelessly turned technology into ground-breaking physics results. Now, with <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/backgrounders/lhc-season-2-facts-figures">Run 2 and a second season of LHC experiments</a> due to start this month, the same experts will need to manage even greater amounts of data produced by particle collisions of even greater energy.</p>
<h2>Harder, better, faster, stronger</h2>
<p>Not only will Run 2 nearly double the experiments’ collision energy in order to probe theories such as supersymmetry, extra dimensions and magnetic monopoles – this round of humans vs protons will result in almost three times as many collisions per second in the collider. This increase will allow the properties of the Higgs boson to be studied in greater detail, perhaps even giving some understanding of why the particle that gives mass to others also has mass of its own.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/74659/original/image-20150312-13520-1sl8mnc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plotting the path of every particle and fragment generates data by the warehouse-full.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ALICE/CERN</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the debris left by exploded hadrons was hard enough to pick through last time – left as it was, the grid would have required six times the computational capacity in order to cope with the size of the figurative haystack in which physicists are looking for needles. But the grid has been upgraded <a href="http://press.web.cern.ch/backgrounders/lhc-season-2-stronger-machine">alongside the experimental apparatus</a> to cope with demand.</p>
<h2>Evolution, not revolution</h2>
<p>New techniques introduced to cope with the experiments’ demands include <a href="https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/frequently-asked-questions-intel-multi-core-processor-architecture#_Essential_concepts">multi-core processing</a>. In order to compensate for the diminishing advances in processor speed, multi-core CPUs – processors designed as two, four or even eight CPUs in a single package – are being rolled out as worker nodes throughout the grid. </p>
<p>This has meant physicists have to rewrite their code to be multi-threaded in order to take advantage of the multiple cores by sending them tasks in parallel, but the result is much improved processing speeds. The grid then has to cleverly manage how these tasks are shared within a single site – not a trivial task when each site typically has thousands of nodes.</p>
<p>The huge amount of data transferred between sites also puts a burden on networks. This has been reduced by using <a href="https://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/about">xrootd</a>, a high-level protocol that provides a means for scientists to access the huge datasets stored across the grid in the most network-efficient way possible. By implementing a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214579614000033">dynamic data placement</a> policy, the grid can learn how many copies to make of popular datasets and where best to put them for optimum performance. </p>
<p>It’s hard to say if Run 2 will give us answers to life, the universe, and everything. There are certainly a lot of scientists whose careers depend on some kind of new physics emerging from the four experimental <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch/about/how-detector-works">detectors</a> spaced around the LHC’s 27km circuit. Some will find what they’re looking for; others will not. But they will all rely for their work on the expertise of the computing technology team who support the world’s largest planet-wide computing network for many years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Whyntie is a member of the GridPP Collaboration and receives funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). He is affiliated with the Langton Star Centre, a research facility for schools, through the CERN@school programme and the LHC's MoEDAL experiment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Coles is a member of the GridPP Collaboration and receives funding from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).</span></em></p>
The ‘supercomputer’ that processes LHC’s data is a networked grid that spans the entire planet.
Tom Whyntie, Visiting Academic and GridPP Dissemination Officer, Queen Mary University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/24334
2014-03-23T19:28:59Z
2014-03-23T19:28:59Z
Gemini Planet Imager – a new eye to scan the sky for exoplanets
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44266/original/r47n4v82-1395199988.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Gemini South telescope – pictured here – houses the latest gear to hunt down and snap photos of exoplanets.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gemini.edu/gallery/v/Facilities/gs/lgs/_U3S0059.jpg.html">Gemini Observatory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is excitement in astronomy and planetary science departments worldwide as the new <a href="http://planetimager.org/">Gemini Planet Imager</a>, housed in the <a href="http://www.gemini.edu/">Gemini South Telescope</a> in the Chilean Andes, turns its razor-sharp gaze to the skies. </p>
<p>This device, known as GPI for short, is the first of a small handful of sophisticated instruments to attempt a task that until recently was considered all but impossible: to image the faint mote of light betraying the presence of a planet nestled against the overwhelming glare of its host star.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44263/original/ycm2vzt8-1395199388.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gemini South Observatory, Chile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gemini Observatory/AURA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Planets in orbit around distant stars – <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/exoplanets">exoplanets</a> – are now known to adorn <a href="http://exoplanet.eu/">more than 1,000</a> star systems. There is possibly five times that number under strong suspicion awaiting only final confirmatory data to join the club. </p>
<p>You could be forgiven for thinking this avalanche of discovery – all coming in the past 20 years – has settled most of the important questions in exoplanetary science. </p>
<p>The reality, though, is it hasn’t. </p>
<h2>Location, location, location</h2>
<p>The sample of exoplanets we now have tells us far more about the limitations of the techniques we use to find them than it does about the exoplanets themselves. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>The search can be likened to the proverbial scientist in a dark car park searching for a set of dropped car keys under the only streetlight. A passer-by asks: “Did you drop your keys there?” “No,” you reply. “I dropped them somewhere over there in the dark, but I can only see here.” </p>
<p>That patch of discovery illuminated by our present instruments particularly favours the largest planets in the closest orbits about their host stars.</p>
<p>The extreme examples of this (and the most celebrated exoplanet discovery – of <a href="http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/51_peg_b/">51 Peg</a> – that launched the field in 1995) are known as “<a href="http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/17aug_hotjupiters/">hot Jupiters</a>”. The name understates their inhospitable crushing gravity combined with searing radiation field from the looming host star. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=307&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44176/original/2hpmy3k7-1395118961.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gemini Planet Imager’s first images of the light scattered by a disk of dust orbiting the young star HR4796A.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gemini.edu/node/12113">Processing by Marshall Perrin, Space Telescope Science Institute</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a quest to identify planets capable of supporting life hot Jupiters score low. Astronomers are working on a valuation scheme that would identify those that lie within the so-called “habitable zone”. </p>
<p>Recognising water in liquid form as the critical environmental ingredient for life on Earth, exoplanets are said to be in this zone if they are able to support a similarly temperate climate. </p>
<p>To get a more representative picture of exoplanetary populations, including those in the habitable zone, we need new techniques to illuminate the unknown areas beyond the reach of our present instruments. </p>
<h2>Peering into the depths</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44265/original/trys9n2m-1395199792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">GPI on the Gemini South Telescope as it prepares for a night of exoplanet observations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.gemini.edu/node/12116">Gemini Observatory/AURA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most obvious way to find an exoplanet is to look for specks of light circling a host star. This also turns out to be one of the most challenging. </p>
<p>To an observer looking at our solar system from a great distance, the Earth is about ten thousand million times fainter than the sun. </p>
<p>This is the brightness difference between a firefly and a modern lighthouse lamp capable of sending a beam to a ship 20km out to sea. </p>
<p>Further compounding the difficulty, the exoplanet imaging problem would be equivalent to the ship’s captain identifying the firefly buzzing about only 1mm from the searing glare of the central lamp. </p>
<h2>Twinkle twinkle little exoplanet</h2>
<p>If this does not sound difficult enough, the whole exercise must be performed while looking at the star through the Earth’s turbulent atmosphere. </p>
<p>This causes a shimmering haze that smears the star and planetary light together into a blurred mess – a bit like sea-spray on the outer glass lighthouse window preventing any clear view within.</p>
<p>This limitation to the clarity of images made with telescopes, known as “<a href="http://calgary.rasc.ca/seeing.htm#">seeing</a>”, has been the bane of astronomers since it was first properly identified by Sir Isaac Newton. </p>
<p>Seeing turned out to be all but intractable until it became a problem for then US president Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative (also known as the <a href="http://www.coldwar.org/articles/80s/SDI-StarWars.asp">Star Wars program</a>) in the 1980s. </p>
<p>Tasked with disabling an incoming missile using a laser beam, military researchers realised that without correcting for the seeing, their laser would diffuse, warming a large patch rather than punching a concentrated lethal hole in the target. </p>
<h2>Seeing better</h2>
<p>Their solution was to develop a complex new technology known as <a href="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/senior/astrophysics/adaptive_optics.html">Adaptive Optics</a>. Since it was declassified in the 1990s it has been taken up and improved at astronomical observatories worldwide. </p>
<p>The key components to the system are a specialised sensor to measure the errors introduced by the atmosphere each instant. It uses a deformable mirror driven by rapid electro-mechanical actuators (or motors) which can undo most of the corrugations in the starlight wavefronts. </p>
<p>The new GPI instrument is the first of a revolutionary new generation given the title of <a href="http://www.gemini.edu/node/11718">Extreme Adaptive Optics</a> systems, with an order of magnitude more actuators delivering exquisite wavefront correction. </p>
<p>All this will allow astronomers to turn on a new powerful floodlamp illuminating unknown sectors of the exoplanetary landscape. For stars in the local neighbourhood of our own sun, GPI will certainly probe in to regions within the habitable zone. </p>
<p>But like any voyage of discovery, perhaps the best part of all is that we don’t really know what we will find there.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Tuthill receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is a member of the Sydney Institute for Astronomy (SIfA).</span></em></p>
There is excitement in astronomy and planetary science departments worldwide as the new Gemini Planet Imager, housed in the Gemini South Telescope in the Chilean Andes, turns its razor-sharp gaze to the…
Peter Tuthill, Astrophysicist, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/22211
2014-01-21T14:35:53Z
2014-01-21T14:35:53Z
Ten weird and terrifying medical instruments from the past
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39571/original/rrsd857j-1390311996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">18th century German cranial brace and bit to create holes in the skulls</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK’s largest medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, has made its vast database of images <a href="http://wellcomeimages.org">freely available to all</a>. The collection holds photos of hundreds of years worth of medicine, instruments and scientific culture.</p>
<p>For me, the progress of science best described by advances in medicine and the instruments used to practice it. Here is a list of a few of my favourites.</p>
<p>Nothing quite says medicine like a syringe. And this collection has plenty, from the 17th century brass or 18th century ivory enema syringes, to the 20th century’s glass and stainless steel ones, all clearly made to last much longer than our modern disposable versions.</p>
<p><strong>17th century French brass syringe</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39556/original/cb59fbzp-1390307331.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>18th century Sri Lankan Ivory enema syringe</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39557/original/vkyd7qt3-1390307409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>19th century Japanese self-administering enema syringe with a piston and reservoir</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39554/original/38r4g7cf-1390307098.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then there are the surgical instruments, like the 16th century tools below. Those on the right include a double-bladed knife, <strong>a forceps for extracting arrow head</strong> and <strong>a bullet extractor</strong>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39558/original/dzd9bc8z-1390308231.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others like the <strong>Belgian Iron “scolds bridle” mask</strong> from the 1550s that was used to publicly humiliate and punish, mainly women, speaking out against authority, nagging, brawling with neighbours, blaspheming or lying, are just horrible inventions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=919&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39568/original/6zwrqdg7-1390311161.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1154&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More preferable are the <strong>“Jedi” helmets</strong> from the 1980s, used in conjunction with MRI scanners to investigate the brain without having to crack open the cranium. The word “Jedi” was used to ensure that children put it on without too much fuss.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39561/original/y8yfhgg7-1390308602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Science Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also this steampunk <strong>steel hand and forearm with brass wrist mountings</strong> from 1890.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39569/original/6dcybx79-1390311665.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And finally how about the slightly <strong>disturbing model eye</strong>… </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39562/original/mdy6pksw-1390308752.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model eye by W. and S. Jones, London, 1840-1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>…to go alongside the original eye pad</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39563/original/kscqvxpf-1390308783.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Box of eyeballs from 1900.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Library, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Lorch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The UK’s largest medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, has made its vast database of images freely available to all. The collection holds photos of hundreds of years worth of medicine, instruments and scientific…
Mark Lorch, Senior Lecturer in Biological Chemistry, University of Hull
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.