Debut for world's fastest camera

[steven johnson]

Here's a new tool to look at ultra-rapid processes that cannot be captured optically with the current technology. They talk about using it for observing the communication between cells, or the activity of neurons or imaging circulating tumour cells in free flowing blood since currently the imaging of individual cells in a fast-flowing volume of blood is impossible for current cameras.

The fastest imaging system ever devised has been demonstrated by researchers reporting in the journal Nature.

Their camera's "shutter speed" is just a half a billionth of a second, and it can capture over six million images in a second continuously.

Another imaging system known as a streak camera can capture images with an even shorter shutter speed, but they can only capture a fixed number of images and must be triggered to do so for a given event.

But the perfect example of an application for the Steam camera's specifications is analysing flowing blood samples.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8025211.stm

[90-percent]

1. In response

This was built to satisfy the Discovery Channel's need to make even more cool pseudo-science programs?

-90% Jimmy