STUDY OF ELECTRON MICROSCOPES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31118, 22 July 1966, Page 12

STUDY OF ELECTRON MICROSCOPES

The first electron microscope in the University of Canterbury will be acquired by the botany department later this year. Mr B. C. Arnold, reader in botany, will go overseas in about a week on an Erskine Fellowship to study the latest techniques in the use of electron microscopes. He will spend most time at the Australian National University at Canberra and then visit universities in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane. In Canada he will call at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Alberta. He will call at the Universities of London and Bristol in England. In all three countries he will also study electron miscopy in Government research, and industrial establishments. Mr Arnold said the extremely thin “slices” of botanical specimens did not require an electron microscope of high power but the new instrument would be invaluable in both teaching and research. Mr Arnold’s own interest in these techniques arises from his particular study of plant cells and growth disturbances caused by mites and fungi. But, he. said, every member of the department would

benefit from the new instrument. While on this tour Mr Arnold will also study the teaching of biology, particularly at the first-year level of university studies. Schools and universities in New Zealand would soon greatly improve their courses in this basic field and he had been asked to' note overseas developments.