2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

A New Paradigm for Electron Microscopy: Fast Detectors and Extreme Data Experimentation

An ongoing revolution in the development of electron detector technology has enabled modes of electron microscopy imaging that before had only been theorized. The age of electron microscopy as a tool for imaging is quickly giving way to a new frontier of multidimensional datasets to be mined. With data collection rates reaching over 100 gigabits per second, a single electron microscope can now generate in one day the same amount of data that the world text messages in a year. These improvements in electron detection have enabled cryo-electron microscopy to resolve the 3D structures of non-crystallized proteins at better than 0.33 nanometer -- potentially revolutionizing structural biology; atomic resolution movies of catalyst particle annealing at over 1,000 frames per second; and 4D reciprocal space maps of materials at atomic resolution -- providing all the structural information about nanoscale materials in one experiment. With direct detectors, the complexity and scale of electron microscopy is now beginning to approach particle physics and astronomy as a data-intensive science. This symposium will feature leading scientists transforming biological and materials science with new imaging tools and massive datasets.