LEE, W-K; FEZZAA, K; WESTNEAT, M; BETZ, O; DONOHUE, K; Argonne National Laboratory; Argonne National Laboratory; Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago; University of Kiel, Germany; Harvard University: Imaging applications of synchrotron radiation for biomechanics and morphology

The advent of third generation hard x-ray synchrotron facilities have greatly enhanced research in many fields. In biology, the exponential growth and successes in solving protein structures (protein crystallography) using synchrotron radiation is well known. However, other fields within biology such as morphology, biomechanics, and physiology can also benefit from these facilities. After a brief introduction to synchrotron radiation, this paper will describe recent progress in the field of x-ray imaging and discuss its applications in the bio-sciences. In particular, the recent advances in phase-enhanced imaging have greatly improved the visibility and contrast of images in a range of biological samples. Coupled with the unsurpassed beam brightness, this has enabled real-time x-ray studies on living insects. Examples of insect respiration and the mechanics of mouth-part function will be shown. Another important imaging technique is tomography. Recent advances in this field provide the researcher with an opportunity to view 3-D volume images with micron-level resolution. Internal structures, in their natural state, can thus be studied without resorting to dissection or histology. Examples with insects and seeds will be shown. Finally, the procedure to access the experimental facilities at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois will be described. The APS is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, contract no. W-31-109-Eng-38.