Menu

Skip to content
  • Home|
  • About|
  • Participate|
  • Social Directory|

The Well:

MBL News from the Source

You are here: Home / The Coronavirus Unveiled: Microscopic Images of SARS-CoV-2 | The New York Times

The Coronavirus Unveiled: Microscopic Images of SARS-CoV-2 | The New York Times

Published on October 13, 2020
The Coronavirus Unveiled: Microscopic Images of SARS-CoV-2 | The New York Times
Share on Facebook
Facebook
Pin on Pinterest
Pinterest
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin

data preprocessed in process/process-data.js

These beautiful visualizations of the coronavirus include a movie of protein-RNA condensates made in the laboratory of MBL Fellow Amy Gladfelter of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

By Carl Zimmer

In February, as the new coronavirus swept across China and shut down entire cities, a scientist named Sai Li set out to paint its portrait.

At the time, the best pictures anyone had managed to take were low-resolution images, in which the virus looked like a barely discernible smudge.

Dr. Li, a structural biologist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, joined forces with virologists who were rearing the virus in a biosafety lab in the city of Hangzhou. Those researchers doused the viruses with chemicals to render them harmless and then sent them to Dr. Li.

Dr. Li and his colleagues then concentrated the virus-laden fluid from a quart down to a single drop. He could only hope that they had done everything just right, so that the weeks of work to produce that drop would not have been a waste.

“At the time, you don’t know what’s inside,” Dr. Li said. “It’s just liquid, right?” Read more …

Photo: The coronavirus enters human cells by latching on to an ACE2 receptor, in yellow. Lorenzo Casalino, Amaro Lab, U.C. San Diego.

Source: The Coronavirus Unveiled: Microscopic Images of SARS-CoV-2 – The New York Times

Posted in MBL in the News | Tagged Biology and Biochemistry, Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), Microbiology, Proteins, RNA (Ribonucleic Acid), Vaccination and Immunization, via bookmarklet

Post navigation

← Nobel Prize to CRISPR Pioneers Highlights the Power of Basic Research New Study Traces the Evolution of Gill Covers →

MBL in the News

  • Mesmerizing Video Study Reveals How Octopus Arms Are So Flexible | ScienceAlert
  • A Newfound Source of Cellular Order in the Chemistry of Life| Quanta Magazine
  • Jellyfish Build Walls of Water to Swim Around the Ocean | The New York Times
  • The World’s Most Diverse Group of Bacteria Lives Inside Your Mouth | Popular Science
  • Camouflaged words: A Conversation with Roger Hanlon on Art and Science | st_age
  • Enthusiastic Crew Cares For The Mary Garden | Falmouth Enterprise
  • Octopus And Squid Evolution Is Stranger Than We Imagined | ScienceAlert
  • Falmouth’s Great Pond Area Next Up For Sewering | Falmouth Enterprise
  • Future Of Climate Change, Tongue Microbiome | Science Friday
  • A Closer Look at the Genomes of Mouth Microbial Communities | Harvard University
Archived Posts

Subscribe to the Well

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts.

Copyright © 2021 Marine Biological Laboratory