Recent advances in microscopy?

Question

what are the latest advantages? a brief history? n its future benefits and utilization

Answer 1

There's a brief history of microscopy at the first link.

Recent advances?

Scanning tunneling electron microscopy - allows the observation and manipulation of individual atoms.

2 photon microscopy - (second link) Allows observations up to 1 mm deep in living tissue using a trick of the light.

Computerized microscopic analysis of cell samples - allows screening of large numbers of samples to identify changes due to pathology (i.e. cancer) or drug treatments (i.e. cancer drug testing).

As for the future, well microscopes remain the most common way to visualize cells and structures that are too small to be seen.  As such, they will remain crucial in biomedical research and materials science.  

Many advances, however, are not in the microscope hardware itself, but in how the tissues and cells are labeled.  Search the third link for 'brainbow' to find a really neat demonstration of this in the tracing of axons in the mouse brain.