Autumn is usually not such a great time for big special effects movies as the summer blockbusters have faded and those for the holiday season have not yet opened. Fall is more often the time for thoughtful films about small subjects, which makes it perfect for the unveiling of a new movie produced by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Through a combination of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and their own unique graphene liquid cell, the researchers have recorded the three-dimensional motion of DNA connected to gold nanocrystals. This is the first time TEM has been used for 3D dynamic imaging of so-called soft materials. This TEM movie (left) and 3D reconstruction (right) shows the motion of a gold nanoparticle trimer (yellow spheres) connected by DNA (green). The red arrow highlights rotational motion and dark circular shapes following this trimer are calculated projections that match what is shown in the TEM movie. “Our demonstration of 3D dynamic imaging goes beyond TEM’s conventional use in seeing flat, dry samples and opens many exciting opportunities for studying the dynamics of biological macromolecular assemblies and artificial nanostructures,” says physicist Alex Zettl, one of the leaders

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