6 DOING SCIENCE 



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ABORATORiES TODAY house all sorts of exotic-looking paraphernalia. In some 

 cases, the equipment even spills out into the halls, with large, heavy-duty, 

 impressive-looking apparatus designed to sterilize or rotate or otherwise 

 manipulate the required materials for the intricate operations that make up 

 science. Fancy high-poxA^ered computers have appeared, for example. Or 

 Shinya Inoue's unique six-foot light microscope, which is both large and 

 complex, but which makes it possible to observe details of living organisms 

 instead of the frozen and prepared dead specimens required for the more 

 typical electron microscopy. Elsewhere, bright yellow signs on some doors 

 declare the radioactive goings-on inside. Much of twentieth-century biology 

 has become complicated and expensive, often requiring teamwork. Of 

 course, this does not keep the researchers from personalizing their space 

 with posters, favorite photographs, or even afternoon coffee or tea breaks. 



Afternoon tea poured by Mrs. Albert 

 Svent-Gyorgyi. MBL Archives. 



