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 It's the next step in microscopes, the iPod of science. It is only the size of a PC, yet it's more powerful than anything else that will fit on a desktop, and for less than $100,000. A few individuals are buying them to one-up their friends who have only a plasma TV! We begin with the foot of a fruit fly. Then the eye of the fly. And what looks like grass is the surface of a chicken ovary.  
We've all gasped at magnificent images like these, snapped by huge, expensive machines. They're called electron microscopes — because they shine an electron beam instead of a light beam. The best optical microscope will magnify something 1,000 times. This one will magnify 20 times better than that. It is a scanning electron microscope (SEM). That's nothing new, they've been around for a while. But typically, it took a Ph.D. to operate one of these, and it weighed a ton. This one it doesn't take Arnold Schwarzenegger to pick up. And it fits on a desktop. It's called the Phenom." It's simple as an iPod. Load your samples on a carrousel the size of a quarter. Use a touchscreen to select your subject, and snap a 4.2 megapixel image just as you would with your pocket camera. And take it home on a USB thumb drive.
It's a collaboration of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnology Institute, some universities, and Oregon company FEI. Development was funded in part by grants from the Department of Energy and the European Union. "I think our future users, like my sons, grew up with a videogame sort of environment, and a need for immediacy in feedback," says Don Kania, CEO of FEI. "That's why the speed of loading the sample, the immediacy of the imagery, the tactile interfaces are so important.
"You don't need a Ph.D. to run this piece of equipment; you can have a 12-year-old run this." In fact, a high school student has already used it to study how the stinger works on a sea anemone. Turns out it's a screwy hypodermic needle.
The Next StepAt $70,000, the Phenom will appeal to drug firms and nanotech startups. But they're already appearing in universities and high schools.What's more, the company has had a number of inquiries from individuals. That's right, you can keep your little home theater. Keep your laser coffee-maker/designer kitchen. I'll take an electron microscopic for my rec room. By the way, take a good look at the bristles on that toothbrush. The stuff on the bristles? You don't want to know. Now, try to guess the subjects of the electron microscope images on the next page.
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