Under the microscope

Advances in technology have allowed scientists to observe a hydrogen bond, a great leap forward in the study of life science. Cheng Yingqi reports.

Ever since Galileo Galilei invented the microscope 500 years ago, leaps in technology have extended our vision further into the world beyond the naked eye-from insects' eyes to cells, molecules and atoms. Now scientists are observing the hydrogen bond, a weak bond among individual molecules. "To observe molecules and the bond that links them together is like using a super telescope to observe a human from the moon. In the past we found a crowd of people standing on the Earth; now we can see that these people are holding hands with each other," says Qiu Xiaohui, an author of the research paper, Real-Space Identification of Intermolecular Bonding with Atomic Force Microscopy, which was recently published in Science magazine.

"The observation system opens up broad prospects for understanding the mechanism of intermolecular interactions."