MRI detects single hydrogen atom for the first time

http://phys.org/news/2014-10-extremely-high-resolution-magnetic-resonance-imaging.html

But what I really hope is that this advance combined with some more like it (which I hope will come soon ) would lead to a way of imaging protein molecules and directly image their exact structure and shape while they are dissolved in liquid water -something that currently cannot be done.

Even better would be if they can then image enzyme molecules in real time in cells so that they can see not only how the enzymes molecules work but what each one does.

If they can do all that, I am convinced this will massively speed up research in all aspects of human biochemistry indirectly leading to very rapid breakthroughs in virtually every area of medicine with new and effective cures for diseases that are currently fatal. Instead of having to wait, say, 80 years before we have effective cures for, say, all types of cancers, we will have effective cures rapidly developed within, say, just 2 years! This is what I think and hope.

qOriginally posted by humy
http://phys.org/news/2014-10-extremely-high-resolution-magnetic-resonance-imaging.html

But what I really hope is that this advance combined with some more like it (which I hope will come soon ) would lead to a way of imaging protein molecules and directly image their exact structure and shape while they are dissolved in liquid water -something that c ...[text shortened]... have effective cures rapidly developed within, say, just 2 years! This is what I think and hope.

Great news! One thing they didn't say was the strength of the magnetic field. I always thought you got better res by having higher mag strength. I gather that wasn't the case here but they didn't mention it. Nor the frequency of the resultant radio signal. UHF? Ghz? I remember when I worked at Goddard on Apollo, where my job was Apollo tracking and timing, the timing part was a triple atomic clock, well, double atomic and a third temperature compensated quartz crystal way more accurate than our present day watches, anyway we were introduced to the hydrogen maser clock, the most accurate in the world att, where the hydrogen was giving off a 9.8 gigahertz signal that was processed down to a clock tick and because of the high frequency and newer frequency stabilization circuitry, was accurate to 1 second in 6 million years, quite a feat for 1970 since the cesium beam clock of the main timing unit was good for 1 second in 2000 years and the secondary atomic clock, a rubidium beam clock only 1/10th as stable as the cesium clock, both off the shelf Hewlett Packard models. Anyway I wonder if the signal they monitored was like that, somewhere around 10 gigahertz.