A coated, highly transparent film based on cellulose triacetate, is proposed that includes a) a support film acting as support layer and a cellulose triacetate or a mixture of cellulose esters and cellulose triacetate as main component, the cellulose triacetate or mixture being defined by a haze value of <0.5%, measured on the cellulose triacetate or mixture drawn out to a film after having been dissolved in dichloromethane or acetone, and b) a multi-functional coating applied in a coating solution to one or both sides of the support film. A dissolver medium can also be used as an enclosure medium. The highly transparent films of the invention can be used as window film, sunglasses film, laminating film, furniture foil, enclosing film, slide film for microscopy, cover slip replacement film and/or protective film, adhesive to glass, wood, metal, ceramic, cellulose derivative films or plastics following incipient dissolution or heat treatment.

A composite core material and methods for making same are disclosed herein. The composite core material comprises mineral filler discontinuous portions disposed in a continuous encapsulating resin. Further, the method for forming a composite core material comprises the steps of forming a mixture comprising mineral filler, an encapsulating prepolymer, and a polymerization catalyst; disposing the mixture onto a moving belt; and polymerizing said encapsulating prepolymer to form a composite core material comprising mineral filler discontinuous portions disposed in a continuous encapsulating resin.

The present invention provides compositions and methods that allow lipid membranes to be imaged optically at nanoscale resolution via a lipid-optimized form of expansion microscopy, also referred to as membrane expansion microscopy (mExM). mExM, via a post-expansion antibody labeling protocol, enables protein-lipid relationships to be imaged in organelles such as mitochondria, the endoplasmic reticulum, the nuclear membrane, and the Golgi apparatus. mExM may be of use in a variety of biological contexts, including the study of cell-cell interactions, intracellular transport, and neural connectomics.

A signal of fluorescence emitted from a fluorescent particle of a pathological specimen can be increased in sensitivity and be stabilized, thereby resulting in an enhancement in retrieval accuracy of information from a fluorescence image. A pathological specimen including a tissue section subjected to a treatment (immunostaining/FISH staining treatment) for fluorescence-labeling of an objective biomaterial with a fluorescent particle observable in a dark field, based on an immunostaining or FISH method; a packed layer with which the tissue section is covered; and a protection layer with which the packed layer is covered; wherein the refractive indexes of the fluorescent particle, the packed layer and the protection layer (measurement wavelength: 589 nm; measurement temperature: 20 C.; in all) satisfy the conditions of Expressions (1) and (2):
|n1n2|0.20Expression (1)
|n2n3|0.15Expression (2) n1: refractive index (fluorescent particle) n2: refractive index (packed layer) n3: refractive index (protection layer).

Described herein is a bone tissue clearing method with enhanced optical access. Compositions and techniques for bone tissue clearing include continuous convective flow during the clearing process, amino alcohol to minimize tissue autofluorescence, and an imaging procedure that minimizes refractive index variations in light-sheet microscopy. These improvements allowed the Inventors to achieve whole-bone clearing with an imaging depth of up to about 1.5 mm while maintaining fluorescence and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that permits detection and 3D placement of single cells. In various embodiments, the present application teaches methods and kits for clearing and optionally subsequently visualizing tissue containing bone.

A method and system for measuring an inert gas by an ion probe. Embedding a to-be-measured sample into an epoxy resin, to obtain a sample target, where the to-be-measured sample includes an inert gas atom; after putting the obtained sample target into an analysis chamber of the ion probe, vacuumizing the analysis chamber, where the ion probe includes a primary ion source, an electron gun, a mass analyzer, and an ion detector; bombarding the sample target by using a primary ion beam formed by the primary ion source to release the inert gas atom in the sample target; ionizing the released inert gas atom by using an electron beam formed by the electron gun to form an inert gas ion; and analyzing a secondary ion containing the inert gas ion by using the mass analyzer and the ion detector to achieve measurement of the inert gas.

Refractive index matching (RIM) formulations, their use for mounting biological specimens (e.g., cells and tissues) to a substrate, and methods of visualizing biological specimens embedded in RIM formulations are described.

The facility for validating the origin and/or quality of biological specimen sections, stored on specimen slides, includes a device for reading encoded identification data, a device for acquiring biometric data specific to a biological specimen, and a data transmitter to a computer processor. The facility validates the origin and/or the quality of biological specimen slides or validates the quality of the staining of biological specimen slides. There are methods for implementing the facility in the context of such uses.

The present invention relates to the field of microscopy, preferably electron microscopy. Especially, the present invention concerns an embedding medium for imaging a biological sample by microscopy comprising: from 60% to 99% wt. of a glycol dimethacrylate selected from alkylene glycol dimethacrylate and/or oligo(alkylene glycol) dimethacrylate; from 0% to 38% wt. of a polyalkylene glycol diacrylate or of a polyalkylene glycol methacrylate; said polyalkylene glycol diacrylate or polyalkylene glycol methacrylate being optionally substituted by at least one hydrophilic group such as hydroxyl, amino, or an oxo group; at least one additive, preferably comprising at least one heavy metal salt or lanthanide salt; and from 0.1% to 2% wt. of a radical polymerization initiator. The present invention also refers to the electro-conductive material resulting from the polymerization of the embedding medium of the invention, and the process and kits of preparation thereof; said material embedding at least one biological sample. The present invention also relates to a method for imaging by microscopy, a biological sample comprising using the embedding medium and/or the electro-conductive material of the invention.

Hybrid microparticle having a polymer core and a shell which surrounds the polymer core at least in sections and which has a silicon dioxide layer; characterized by an RF value, the RF value being defined as the ratio of an external surface area amenable to the adsorption of nitrogen to a surface area which is computable from an arithmetic mean diameter of the hybrid microparticle considered as an ideal sphere, where the shell has a structure selected from: closed and smooth, with the shell having an RF value of between 1 and 1.5; closed and hillocky, with the shell having an RF value of between 1.51 and 3; or open, with the shell having an RF value of greater than 3.01.