The Microscope – Volume 72, Third Quarter 2025

IN THIS ISSUE
On the cover
Photomicrographs of a variety of particles and various substances found within the known WTC 9/11 “Ground Zero” dust specimen. See A Factual Account of the Forensic Authentication of the Missing 9/11 "Ground Zero" American Flag, page 99. (Photomicrographs courtesy of Nicholas Petraco)
Editorial | Happy Birthday McCrone Research Institute, Happy Birthday to You!
Gary J. LaughlinThe Microscope 72:3, p. ii, 2025https://doi.org/10.59082/SMRW9629 Excerpt: This year, 2025 marks the 65th anniversary of the McCrone Research Institute, nearly 90 years of The Microscope (now in its 88th year of production) and 77 years of the annual Inter/Micro meetings and conference. On this momentous occasion, we remember and recognize the four pillars of the organization with beginnings that extend back into the early 20th century: Microscopy Publishing since the 1930s; Applied Microscopy Research since the 1940s, Microscopy Meetings and Conferences since the 1940s; and formal Microscopy Education since the 1950s. The mission has been clear and unchanged since its official incorporation by its founders and charter members, Dr. Walter C. McCrone and Mrs. Lucy B. McCrone: To advance the proper use of the microscope through teaching, research, and publishing, and provide the highest quality education and applied scientific research in the fields of analytical microscopy, microchemistry, and ultramicroanalysis.
A Factual Account of the Forensic Authentication of the Missing 9/11 "Ground Zero" American Flag
Nicholas Petraco, Nicholas D.K. Petraco, Peter Shenkin, Thomas A. Kubic, Peter Diaczuk, Anthony Carpi, and Lawrence KobilinskyThe Microscope 72:3, pp. 99–109, 2025https://doi.org/10.59082/RPBZ5593 Abstract: Presented here are the actual events surrounding the authentication of the missing, original World Trade Center (WTC) 9/11 “Ground Zero” American flag raised by three New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firemen on that horrific day. A patriotic rally and signing of what was believed to be the actual raised flag, was held at Yankee Stadium 12 days after the attack. Following the rally, the flag was sent around the globe on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. Upon its return to New York City, in April 2002, the flag’s original owners discovered it was not the flag taken from their yacht. After a decade long search for their missing flag, CNN aired a show on their History Mystery program on September 13, 2013 entitled: “What Became of the Ground Zero Flag?” On October 31, 2014, the History Channel aired an episode on Brad Meltzer’s Lost History Season 1 Episode 1, entitled: “The Ground Zero Flag.” A few days later, an unknown former Marine presented a small flag to a firefighter working in Station Firehouse 1 in Everett, City, WA, thus starting a 23-month long investigation by the Everett Police Department. Two seasoned Everett police department detectives were assigned to the investigation. The detectives promptly began their investigation on November 4, 2014. In June 2015, after the Everett Police Investigators finally realized that they could only report that the questioned flag (Q-Flag) left at Fire Station No. 1 ”could be” the missing 9/11 flag, the investigators finally sent DNA specimens to New York University for DNA analysis, and dust specimens from the Q-flag and halyard to John Jay College of Criminal Justice, for a comprehensive forensic analysis and comparison to an extensive collection of known “Ground Zero-WTC 9/11” dust specimens.
A Legally Defensible Operating Procedure for Asbestos Analysis by Transmission Electron Microscopy with Emphasis on Asbestos in Talc-Containing Materials
Shu-Chun Su The Microscope 72:3, pp. 110–123, 2025https://doi.org/10.59082/PZKQ6211 Abstract: The author has developed a comprehensive operating procedure for asbestos analysis utilizing analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM). This methodology is designed to be technically thorough, scientifically rigorous, and legally defensible, ensuring the quality, integrity, and reproducibility of asbestos testing, particularly in talc-containing cosmetic products. Additionally, the author provides an essential resource: a comprehensive suite of d-spacing and interfacial angle look-up tables for the identification of regulated asbestos minerals and other relevant minerals. Furthermore, a dual-zone-axis selected area electron diffraction (SAED) method is proposed to enable unequivocal confirmation of amphibole asbestos, with a particular emphasis on anthophyllite. CORRECTION: On page 121 of the published article, the Metric Tensor (MT) equation is incomplete where a portion of the entries in the third column and right square bracket symbol are not showing. The equation has been corrected here. Download/view the corrected Metric Tensor (MT) equation.
Particle Source Identification, Part 1: Thinking in Assemblages
Russ Crutcher and Heidie Crutcher The Microscope 72:3, pp. 124–131, 2025 https://doi.org/10.59082/UGIK4736 Abstract: Microscopists have long been aware of limitations in the human visual system. There is a limit to how many things one can look for in a field of view. If scanning for fibers, then only a few types can be tracked at a time. If looking for minerals, the same limitation occurs. One way around this limitation is to bunch things together: fibers, minerals, dander, plant debris, insect debris, rubber wear, and other. If the list gets much longer, then the field of view must be searched repeatedly, keeping track of a few things at a time. These limitations and workarounds, so obvious to microscopists, have been the subject of research in a branch of cognitive psychology since at least 1890. Some of this research was the subject of a paper by the authors a few years ago. That paper presented a model of the human visual system that indicated the basic bottom-up and top-down processes involved in what is called “seeing.” That paper indicated the complex parallel processing that finally results in what we think we are seeing. It discussed the limitations of what is called the “working memory.” This article expands on that discussion and presents a much more rapid method for analyzing an environmental tapelift. It introduces the concept of assemblage analysis and explores the research from cognitive science that supports it.
Critical Focus | Lineage Without Limit: How Cells Can Resist Ageing
Brian J. Ford The Microscope 71:3, pp. 132–143, 2025https://doi.org/10.59082/GAOJ2855 Excerpt: It’s one of the first sad lessons of life: we die. Sappho wrote about its inevitability in Fragment 58, composed about 600 BC, and around 350 BC Aristotle wrote a lengthy treatise exploring the “vital heat” that drives human metabolism, commenting on its inevitable decay. Our modern microscopical insights explain why it happens. We now recognize that, within each cell nucleus, the telomeres progressively shorten. The genome becomes unstable as mutations accumulate. Cells progressively lose viability and, after about 50 mitotic divisions, they undergo apoptosis and die. It is inevitable … or is it?
Afterimage | Dragon
Meggan King Dempsey — McCrone Research InstituteThe Microscope 72:3, p. 144, 2025
Radiolaria by Rheinberg illumination with magenta (annular) and blue (central) disks. Selected as "Most Unique Photomicrograph" at the Inter/Micro 2025 Photomicrography Competition in Chicago.
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