Stripping down science, the naked scientists.

The Naked Scientists. It's. Hello, it's Sunday the 27th of November. Welcome to the Naked Scientists.

I'm Ben Valsler and I'm joined this week by Dave Ansel.

Hello. This week we've got a whole new way of looking at the world. We'll explore

new ways to see tiny things and to see inside metal stretches. In the news we'll be looking at a long-term study of statins and unerthing the world's oldest fish hook.

So if you have any questions or comments for us, you can tweet at naked scientists right on our Facebook page that's at

Facebook.com slash the naked scientists or drop us an email. Our email address is

Chris at the naked scientists dot com.

The Naked Scientists podcast is powered by UK Fast,

the UK's best hosting provider on the web at UKfast.co. UK.

This is the naked scientist and this week we're looking at new ways of seeing the world.

The optical microscope revolutionized science. It gave us access to an unprecedented world

too small to see with the human eye.

It's still a relatively simple design, essentially a light source and a series of lenses

that magnify the image that you're looking at.

There are also some very simple ways that we can adapt it to get increased resolution, a very tight depth of field, and even three-dimensional images.

Confocal microscopy was invented by renowned scientists Professor Marvin Minsky back in the 1950s and it's now being put to excellent use by amongst others Dr. Abigail Woodfin from the Center for Micro vascular Research at Queen Mary University of London.

Abigail, thank you ever so much for joining us.

Hello.

First of all, could you just tell us a bit more?

What is Confocal Microscopy?

Okay, so Confocal Microscopy. What is con focal microscopy?

...