
Scientists capture MRI scans of single atoms - digital55
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/science/microscope-atom-magnetic-mri.html
======
october_sky
I love how amateur the physical machine looks, with all of that aluminum foil
stuck to it and the wires falling about. This immediately reminded me of how
my codebase looks whenever I am doing a proof-of-concept just to show someone
that something is possible. "Let's get it working before we make it look
pretty" \-- what I imagined they said.

~~~
tempguy9999
Even includes what appears to be a can of orange pop. Seriously. Placed
sideways, near-end of the table. Weird.

~~~
timdorr
Actually, that's an Arizona Iced Tea:
[https://i1.wp.com/sanpedrosupermarket.com/wp-
content/uploads...](https://i1.wp.com/sanpedrosupermarket.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/04/Arizona-Iced-Tea-with-Lemon.jpg)

------
NautilusWave
This is a weird title, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technology was first used in
the field of Chemistry for identifying the structure and content of molecules.
The medical industry was later able to adopt it, under the name MRI, for
medical imaging. This should really be considered an extension of NMR.

~~~
ekianjo
Note that the medical industry chose MRI because it hides a word that is so
taboo they don't even want to see it mentioned anywhere: "Nuclear", from
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, even though it has nothing to do with radiations
in this particular case.

~~~
certmd
Not so sure medicine is afraid to use the word "nuclear". Nuclear medicine a
field that patients deal with regularly from getting bone density scans for
osteoporosis, thyroid and cardiac imaging, etc. In the US at least the name of
the department is plastered on signs in hospitals next to everything else. As
for why "nuclear" was dropped from I don't know the exact reason.

~~~
mehrdadn
>> Note that the medical industry chose MRI because it hides a word that is so
taboo they don't even want to see it mentioned anywhere: "Nuclear"

> Not so sure medicine is afraid to use the word "nuclear".

 _MRI was originally called NMRI (nuclear magnetic resonance imaging), but
"nuclear" was dropped to avoid negative associations._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging)

------
wiz21c
I'm not much in physics. Could someone explain what the picture actually shows
? I understand that there are 4 shots of an atom. I see that globally there
are for spheres. But I don't understand the yellowish shapes...

~~~
dlivingston
What you're seeing is effectively a heat map of electromagnetic intensity, if
I'm reading the figure correctly.

------
mrfusion
Does this mean we can increase the resolution of mris to the atomic level?
That would be amazing for studying the brain.

~~~
heyitsguay
Not an expert, but from my read they built this basically by combining an MRI
sensor with a scanning tunneling probe - so it's set up kind of like atom-
sensing atomic force microscopes
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscopy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscopy)).
It doesn't seem like this technique would give you much depth penetration
inside the body for one thing, and it'd be tough to process across human
scales in a reasonable time. There are a lot of atoms in those 1mm-ish voxels
of a medical MRI. It might be useful for purposes similar to AFMs or electron
microscopes in the future, though.

------
craftinator
Typo I think:

"disrupting the electrons (rather the protons, as a typical M.R.I. would)
within each atom."

Should be:

"disrupting the electrons (rather THAN the protons, as a typical M.R.I. would)
within each atom."

------
sqldba
Couldn't read because of the paywall, then also couldn't read in private mode
(because it detected it - fun). To be fair I don't even want to read it, I
just want to see the picture.

~~~
Nyandalized
Funny thing; they hide the article after loading with javascript, so disabling
it will allow you to read it normally.

