The president calls SARS-CoV-2 the “unnoticeable enemy.” Sure, at some 0.000003 inches across, the virus averts the naked eye. Fortunately for us, virologists have a tool to render the pathogen rather visible, thanks to British physicist Joseph John Thomson. In 1897, Thomson discovered the electron, a particle too teensy to be measured. Just over 30 years later, researchers showed it’s also a wave that magnets can flex, simply as lenses deflect light. Those discoveries birthed the electron microscope and fuzzy photos, or micrographs, of the virosphere.
Today virologists can see pathogens attack cells. That’s what those yellow dots (aka SARS-CoV-2) are performing in this 30,000 X magnification of vervet monkey cells. “Individuals believe we’re attempting to make them look scary,” says microscopist John Bernbaum, whose team at the National Institute of Allergic Reaction and Transmittable Diseases caught and colorized this image in March to better comprehend the infection “But we simply try to come up with pleasing color mixes.”
Bernbaum utilized a scanning electron microscopic lense, known