Why must scientists cut a thin slice from a biological specimen before they can do it under a microscope

Time for microscopes 101. There are two major types of microscopes; light and electron. In a light microscope the image if seen by refracting light through 2 or more lenses which result in a magnified image of the specimen being viewed. However there are limits to the ability to view these and they are not powerful enough to view very small object. An electron microscope which was referred to in the question works by cutting the specimen to be viewed into a very small piece and then bombarding it with electrons which result in a much clearer and more magnified viewing. HOWEVER, Electron microscopes do not work on living things while regular light microscopes do. Also, due to way how electron microscopes are made they are not common in everyday laboratories and are very expensive to buy.  comment below if you need anything else

Proteins are the workhorses of the cell, controlling virtually every reaction within as well as providing structure and serving as signals to other cells. proteins are long chains of  amino acids  , and the exact sequence of the amino acids determines the final structure and function of the protein. instructions for that sequence are encoded in  genes  . to make a particular protein, a messenger ribonucleic acid (mrna) copy is made from the gene (in the process called  transcription  ), and the mrna is transported to the  ribosome  . protein synthesis, also called  translation  , begins when the two ribosomal subunits link onto the mrna. this step, called initiation, is followed by elongation, in which successive amino acids are added to the growing chain, brought in by transfer rnas (trnas). in this step, the ribosome reads the  nucleotides  of mrna three by three, in units called  codons  , and matches each to three nucleotides on the trna, called the anticodon. finally, during termination, the ribosome unbinds from the mrna, and the  amino acid  chain goes on to be processed and folded to make the final, functional protein