Thanks to recent unprecedented improvements in the quality of electron sources, lenses, and detectors, scientists can now attain direct images and diffraction patterns of nanostructures used in catalysts, batteries, and drug delivery with atomic- and molecular-level spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution. These advances have pushed our understanding beyond static structures to capturing atoms in motion, thereby allowing a direct, real-time view of the behavior of atoms in different environments. With these advances, scientists can see if new materials for alternative batteries degrade or stay intact. They can study catalytic reactions occurring in fuel cells or biological cells as the reactions happen. This symposium will explore three recent innovations that enable the direct imaging of atomic structure: the determination of the structure-function properties of biomolecules, the increasingly rapid dynamic observations of nanoscale processes, and the surprises provided as we reach the physical limits of observing atoms and their interactions. In addition, the symposium will discuss the push to apply that knowledge to the larger scale, being able to see the interactions in molecular systems.