Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for 'groundbreaking' microscope advances

Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for 'groundbreaking' microscope advances
(Image credit: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images)

Two Americans, Eric Betzig and William Moerner, and one German, Stefan Hell, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. The trio developed "super-resolved fluorescence microscopy," which allowed microscopes to see more details than were previously available with traditional optical microscopes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that the scientists' creation was "groundbreaking" and had "brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension."

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Meghan DeMaria

Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.