For his inaugural post Clive Bentley brings us a glimmer of the future with an extremely forward-looking post about a new breakthrough in light recording that could revolutionize how we see the physical and biological world in the future.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtsXgODHMWk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
While this is not very practical for us reefers, MIT is making strides in (really) high speed photography that is so fast, you can actually see light moving through an object. While the equipment is complex, the concept is simple enough. Using a series of sensors, rather than one high speed one, they can trigger each sensor in a cascade much faster than a single sensor could fire off. The only drwaback to their setup is that it only takes readings in a single narrow horizontal line, requiring mirrors to capture more vertical data, which is then composited.
Beyond the cool factor of potentially being able to see light moving through our aquariums, this could help researchers see visually how light interacts with marine organisms in real time. As the team at MIT seems to be using off the shelf lenses for SLR cameras, it would be a simple job to change the setup to include macro lenses, or even microscopes to get up close and personal and see the interaction at the cellular level.
Via [Engadget]
