Seeing Through Brain

A mouse embryo soaked in saline solution (left) compared with an embryo washed in Scale.

Scientists are on the road towards developing a new chemical that shall make our brain tissue totally transparent. The chemical has been termed as scale and it shall make body's tissue so crystal clear that light can easily penetrate through it, so much so, that researchers can then see EXACTLY what's happening inside. At this stage, it is being tested on mice, but the final usage shall be on humans. Once accomplished, it will be a major breakthrough in  medical imaging.


"We envision using Scale on other organs such as the heart, muscles, and kidneys and on tissues from primate and human biopsy samples." said Atsushi Miyawaki, of Japan's RIKEN Brain Science Institute."I've worked in brain imaging for 20 years, and seeing something like this really had a wow factor," says Paul Thompson, a neurologist at the UCLA School of Medicine .

Source of Diagram, Info : National Geographic