A few weeks ago, I missed a half-day of work, transfixed by what looked like two clear Gummi Bears on my computer screen. It wasn’t a mid-afternoon blood sugar crash; I was contemplating photos of a mouse brain and embryo turned transparent after soaking in Scale—a cheap “clearing agent” that can be used to peer into normally opaque biological tissue.
Discovered last year by researchers at Japan’s Riken Brain Science Institute, Scale is made from compounds commonly found in the biology lab, like urea and the detergent Triton X. Scale’s low cost means it can be used much more widely than previously developed sample-clearing agents, and it allows scientists to see deeper into tissue than ever before. The discovery enabled the Riken team to produce some of the most detailed maps of brain neurons ever published.
And it is all made possible by transparency, that amazing yet literally overlooked property ...
