The University of Victoria’s mega microscope is once again in the news. Workshops to train scientists on how to use the behemoth are slated to start this fall.

“We have bragging rights. We have the highest resolution in the world,” Elaine Humphrey, manager of UVic’s Advance Microscope Facility told the Victoria Times-Colonist.

Size does matter in this particular area of technology. The seven-tonne, 4.5-metre-tall microscope views objects at a magnification of up to 20 million times larger than what the human eye can see. Built in Japan by Hitachi, it arrived at UVic in parts a year ago. (Imagine putting it together? I hope they had more than an IKEA-style series of badly drawn diagrams.)

The workshops could have international appeal for chemists, electrical and mechanical engineers, biologists and physicists.  The Times-Colonist reports Redlen Technologies, a Victoria firm making high-resolution radiation detectors used in nuclear cardiology and baggage scanning, could be a possible customer.