this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2026
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Elon Musk's xAI loses second cofounder in 48 hours (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by inari@piefed.zip to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] infeeeee@lemmy.zip 38 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

The GIF was created by James Tyrwhitt-Drake back in 2012, when he captured the images at the University of Victoria’s Advanced Microscopy Facility and posted the final product to his Tumblog, Infinity Imagined.

https://petapixel.com/2014/05/29/gif-made-electron-microscope-zooms-life-life-life/

[–] tomiant@piefed.social 6 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Oh ok. You just randomly found that specific one? As a petapixel browser, would you happen to know where to find more of the same? I think I need a serious electron microscope zoom in fix after this.

[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

They're not gifs, but here's a bunch of interesting SEM images from one of the manufacturers of these microscopes.

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/materials-science/scanning-electron-microscopy-materials-science/sem-image-gallery.html

[–] infeeeee@lemmy.zip 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Searched only for "electron microscope zoom", it was like the 10th result. It seems like there isn't a lot of gif like this, as you have to create a lot of images one by one.

[–] fallaciousBasis@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

That's what scripts are for.

[–] infeeeee@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I guess the problem is not the repetitive task, but electron microscopes are expensive to use, and while you create your gifs others can't use it for actual research. They need vacuum and high voltage to work, which cost money.

I found that to create nice and and clean noise free image you need minutes to hours of exposure time, so it's possible that gif took hours to take. Someone had to pay for the electricity bill during that, I guess you don't want to pay for that frequently.

Please correct me if you are someone with actual experience with electron microscopes. It's hard to find info on this topic.