Posts tagged microscope
Stunning shots from the 2013 ATCC Photo Contest:
1. Mouse muscle cell (myoblast) 8 days after differentiation - The University of Iowa
2. Human cervix epithelial cells under multiphoton fluorescence - National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research @ UCSD
(via scinerds)
SEM image (9,379x magnification) of a Zebrafish neuromast taken near the ear. Katie Kindt false-colored the image taken by Greg Baty.
Katie’s main interest in taking the SEM image was to examine the stereocilia and correlate the result with confocal studies that were performed while the zebra fish was alive. Katie and Gabe Finch at OHSU had a difficult time preparing the fish for SEM, due to the variability in a rapidly growing fish that is three days old. It took an interdisciplinary team effort to produce an image of this quality on a high vacuum XL30 Sirion.
Image courtesy of Greg Baty, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon
(Source: Flickr / fei_company, via scinerds)
Chalk under a microscope.
“Chalk is composed of extremely small white globules. They look, up close, like snowballs made from brittle paper plates. Those plates, it turns out, are part of ancient skeletons that once belonged to roundish little critters that lived and floated in the sea, captured a little sunshine and carbon, then died and sank to the bottom… Scientists call these ancient plates ‘coccoliths.’”
(via scinerds)
Bacteria can have a 'sense of smell'
Bacteria are well-known to be the cause of some of the most repugnant smells on earth, but now scientists have revealed this lowest of life forms actually has a sense of smell of its own.
A team of marine microbiologists at Newcastle University have discovered for the first time that bacteria have a molecular “nose” that is able to detect airborne, smell-producing chemicals such as ammonia.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100816095719.htm#.T_suRjLl0cc.tumblr
Junk DNA
Since Crick and Watson’s historic discovery of DNA, our investigation into coding DNA has gone a long way towards unravelling the key to life—but coding DNA only makes up just a few percent of the human genome. The rest is termed “Junk DNA” or “Non-coding DNA” because it doesn’t appear to have any function. However, new research suggests that this Junk DNA might actually play an important role in evolutionary history. Huge “ultraconserved” sections of it have remained the same for millions of years and are identical in many organisms—when you hear that humans and chimps share 98% of DNA, it’s mostly due to this. Increasing evidence suggests that Junk DNA influences coding DNA by acting as a kind of genetic “switch” in gene regulation, and it may also play a role in inheritance, but our knowledge is incomplete. If Junk DNA were really junk, then its sequence of “syllables” should be completely random, but it’s not random—leading scientists to believe it contains some kind of coded information. It’s been suggested that specific repetitive patterns are associated with susceptibility to cancer and other diseases, so understanding Junk DNA might be the key to understanding, diagnosing and curing disease.
(Source: sciencesoup, via shychemist)
Captured by Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner in his project Millefiori, the iron particles start to rearrange, forming black channels and separating the watercolours from the ferrofluid, creating these technicolour structures that look like psychedelic planets or trippy cells under a microscope.
(via shychemist)
Trichodina pediculus (freshwater ciliates), ventral view, living specimens (1000X) (via Nikon Small World - Gerd A. Guenther)
