Bruker Corporation has signed an agreement to acquire the Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) and Optical Industrial Metrology (OIM) instruments business from Veeco Instruments, Inc. for $229 million in cash. The transaction has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies and is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2010, pending regulatory review and subject to customary closing conditions.

There is considerable interest in chemical imaging of pharmaceutical tablets since knowledge of the spatial distribution of constituents is critical to ensuring uniformity and consistency of product. Pharmaceutical tablets in general are complex multicomponent blends comprising active ingredients(s) and a variety of inactive substances—the excipients—that are used to aid manufacture and facilitate tablet administration. Thus, in addition to measurement of the spatial distribution of the active drug, there is a need to monitor excipients such as binders, fillers, coatings, lubricants, disintegrants and preservatives. Imaging of organic and inorganic constituents of tablets represents a considerable challenge and no single spectroscopic approach can provide definitive characterisation of all components and/or satisfy key measurement criteria such as sensitivity, specificity, resolution and speed of analysis. With respect to molecular imaging, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), Raman and fluorescence microscopies are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. Indeed efforts have been made to exploit the complementary nature of IR and Raman by merging respective data sets in order “to enable a more complete visualisation of pharmaceutical formulations”. More generally the approach of Clarke et al. termed “Chemical Imaging Fusion” can be extended to elemental imaging given that inorganic compounds and heteroatoms are critical components of formulations.

I recently “discovered” a very interesting radio programme on BBC Radio 4. It is “devoted to the powerful, sometimes beautiful, often abused but ever ubiquitous world of numbers”. A few weeks ago we were asked to say what we were doing while listening to the programme. The next week we were told that nearly 2000 e-mails had been received and this data had been given to information designer David McCandless to turn into a graphic. When this was trailed I got the impression that something new and exciting was going to be displayed and I thought that the graphic would include sound. The graphic is good but rather “ordinary” and I was disappointed. This got me thinking about how we display information. Have we made any advance in the last 25 years? Could sound be used!

Recent hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the USA’s Declaration of Independence has clearly confirmed past speculation that Jefferson made an interesting word correction during his writing of the document, according to scientists in the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD).

A new technique to analyse fingermarks from crime scenes has the potential to give crucial additional details about a suspect such as their medications, diet, the time at which they accidentally left the fingermark and can even be used to detect any substances they might have touched, such as traces of cocaine. These extra details can be important background information in a criminal investigation, especially if the suspect's fingerprint is not on the police database. It is hoped the technique will compliment current fingermark detection techniques and assist in criminal investigations.

DynaMyc, the latest confocal fluorescence mapping system from Horiba Scientific, now generates lifetime images faster than before.

WITec has introduced a line extension of the alpha300 microscope series. Building on the system's inherent modularity, several new microscope versions have been added in order to meet all diverse and multi-faceted customer requirements.

The new high-resolution V10M hyperspectral imaging sensor from Specim Spectral Imaging operates in the vis/NIR range of 380-1000 nm and provides improved spectral and spatial imaging with negligible sub-pixel distortions.

Princeton Instrument has presented its eXcelon CCD/EMCCD sensor technology developed in collaboration with e3v and Photometrics.

Shimadzu Scientific Instruments has partnered with CovalX to offer the AXIMA MegaTOF, an integrated MALDI solution for ultra high-mass applications, including protein complex characterisation, therapeutic protein aggregates, antibody–antigen interactions, polymer analysis and high mass bioimaging.

David Wetzel and Yong-Cheng Shi of Kansas State University, USA, and John Reffner from John Jay College, City University of New York, USA have applied microscopic chemical imaging to single modified starch granules. Starch manufacturers can use this to determine if the modifying agent used in the production process is uniformly distributed across individual modified starch granules. Mark Boatwright, a K-State graduate research assistant in grain science and industry assisted with data processing for the study.

ChemImage will present the results of an ingredient-specific particle sizing (ISPST) study on a combination metered dose inhaler product at Respiratory Drug Delivery (RDD) 2010 (www.rddonline.com). This conference takes place from 25 to 29 April in Orlando, Florida, USA, and covers current biological and pharmaceutical issues related to nasal and respiratory drug delivery.

This 64-bit data acquisition software for spectroscopy and scientific imaging from Princeton Instruments provides comprehensive control of PI cameras and spectrometers, automatically saves data to disc during acquisition, applies time stamp, retains both raw and corrected data with full experimental details,and  is compatible with 64-bit Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

Anasys Instruments has introduced the nanoIR platform that combines the nanoscale spatial resolution capabilities of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with infrared spectroscopy’s ability to characterise and identify chemical species.

Scientists in the research group of Professor Dr Alfred Meixner and Dr Dai Zhang from the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Tübingen, Germany, have developed a near-field microscope that can measure the optical properties of, for instance, semiconductor thin films with a spatial resolution and sensitivity long thought unachievable due to fundamental physical laws (the diffraction limit). Both the optical spectrum and the topography of a surface can be mapped simultaneously with nanometre precision.

Horiba has announced the construction of a new research facility and European headquarters on the campus of the École Polytechnique in Paris. The new centre will give Horiba access to a pool of innovative technologies, resources and personnel from nearby academic, government and commercial research centres. It is due to open in late 2011.  www.horiba.com/uk/scientific

ChemImage has been selected for $2 million of US defence funding for further development of the Eye-Safe Stand-Off Fusion Detection of chemical, biological, explosive and improvised explosive device threats. The system will combine multiple sensing technologies, including Raman and shortwave infrared chemical imaging.  www.chemimage.com