(PhysOrg.com) -- A Stanford research team uses glowing
nanopillars to give biologists, neurologists and other
researchers a deeper, more precise look into living cells. As
words go, evanescent doesn't see enough use. It is an artful
term whose beauty belies its true meaning: fleeting or dying out
quickly. James Dean was evanescent. The last rays of a sunset
are evanescent. All that evanesces, however, is not lost, as a
team of Stanford researchers demonstrated in a recent article in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, in the
right hands, evanescence can have a lasting effect. The Stanford
team led by chemist Bianxiao Cui and engineer Yi Cui (no
relation), with scholars Chong Xie and Lindsey Hanson have
created a cellular research platform that uses nanopillars that
glow in such a way as to allow biologists, neurologists and
other researchers a deeper, more precise look into living cells.
"This novel system of illumination is very precise," said
Bianxiao Cui, the study's senior author and