Following is a list of microscopy related meetings and courses. The editors would greatly appreciate input to this list via the electronic submission form under “events/other microscopy events” at the MSA webpage: www.msa.microscopy.com. We will gladly add hypertext links to the notice on the web and insert a listing of the meeting in the next issue.

Selected postings from the Microscopy Listserver from November 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. Complete listings and subscription information can be obtained at http://www.microscopy.com. Postings may have been edited to conserve space or for clarity.

I write this as a materials scientist concerned about the inadequacy of regulation, monitoring, and control of what are known as nanoparticles (NPs). This is not because present particulate legislation is “inadequate” but because it is inadequately policed and does NOT extend to small enough particulates. I have analyzed these very small particles in the analytical electron microscope (AEM) for over thirty-seven years. A graduate student, with whom I worked over thirty years ago, described in her thesis the conclusion that these particles would have “long-range environmental impact.” We did not then have the benefit of hindsight.

We hear daily in the media about disasters, large and small, natural and man-made. We witness injury, loss of life, and destruction of homes and businesses. We get estimates of the economic consequences from the loss of property and income. We empathize as we watch the efforts of victims to recover and return to normal lives. And yes, we all hope that it never happens to us.

There are two principal techniques for obtaining diffraction patterns in the transmission electron microscope (TEM). They are selected-area diffraction (SAD) and convergent-beam diffraction (CBED). CBED is quicker and easier to use, and it provides a much richer characterization of the sample. Thus, it is clear that CBED should be used in the vast majority of cases. It should be the diffraction technique that students learn first, and students should be taught to consider it the standard method of doing diffraction in the TEM.