Microscope sets new benchmark for lab equipment

Lab equipment has a new standard to compare with after a microscope with magnification of 20 million times is unveiled at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

The magnification would, according to the educational institution, make a single human hair appear the size of San Antonio itself.

Nicknamed Helenita, the transmission electron microscope, model JEM-ARM200F, is the latest addition to the university's lab equipment and was bought using a seven-figure grant from the Helen C Kleberg Foundation.

It is the most powerful microscope in use anywhere in the world, the university adds.

The chair of the College of Sciences' Department of Physics and Astronomy, Miguel Yacaman, says: "We now have access to resolutions that will give us tremendous scientific advantage to solve problems that need to be attacked."

While focusing on microscopic investigations, the department also looks to the skies every Friday night as part of its Celestial Lights programme.