A new digital ophthalmoscope, devised by a research team led by the University of Warwick can provide both doctors and high street optometrists with a hand held eye disease diagnosis device equal to the power of bulky hospital based eye diagnosis cameras. It will also give optometrists the ability to email detailed eye maps of patients to specialist eye doctors.

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory [EMBL] has developed a new computational tool that makes images obtained with cutting-edge microscopes even sharper. The technological advance and its applications are published in this week's online issue of the journal Nature Methods.

How do you get information from a preparation that is transparent? How can you still see a three-dimensional image through a microscope? Dutch researcher Rajesh S. Pillai investigated a new way of illuminating preparations under the microscope. For example, he could investigate the microstructure of food, which is important for the taste and shelf-life. Furthermore, this technique is highly promising for research into how fat is stored in the human body.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a copper bullet designed to help end criminal sprees without once being fired. Crime laboratories can use NIST's "Standard Bullet" to optimize the settings of computerized optical imaging instruments used to match markings on fired bullets from a suspected weapon.