Now you see it, now you don't

Trying to look at small, cellular organelles - such as synaptic vesicles - through a microscope is a bit like looking into a bucket of transparent tennis balls. But help may now be at hand with the development of two new techniques to increase resolution. In the first, a few vesicles are selectively stained using a fluorescent dye, then all are illuminated. And in the second, all of the vesicles are stained, but only a few of them are then illuminated.