Imagine you’re a PhD student with a fluorescent microscope and a sample of live bacteria. What’s the best way use these resources to obtain detailed observations of bacterial division from the sample?

This illustration represents a bacteria being illuminated with mid-infrared in the top left, while visible light from a microscope underneath is used to help capture the image. A team at the ...

A team has constructed an improved mid-infrared microscope, enabling them to see the structures inside living bacteria at the nanometer scale. Mid-infrared microscopy is typically limited by its low ...