Microscopic world

Just to note again sorry to all the lolitas who added me with no interest in my nerdy life but I'm working on moving over from LJ and wanted to take these posts with me.

Looking at life through a microscope was one of the reasons I got into my field. This will focus half on biology and half on the technology but I'm guessing y'all are just looking at the pictures mostly :P We'll begin with one of my new favorite images of lobster eggs which look like those goldfish from Fantastia.




As a warning most of these things are falsey colored - usually through the use of a polarizing filter (which filters light coming in at an angle to reduce glare, increase color and contrast). Phase shift of differential interference contrast are used to either amplify small shifts of light phase or shearing the beam of light, respectively, to enhance contrast in objects. This is for light microscopy only, we'll talk about electron microscopy after a few more light microscope images. Most of these are from Scientific American or Nikon's Small World.

In keeping with the theme of baby animals we can't usually see, a baby squid embryo and salmon embryos.





Insect larvae are beyond scary when you blow them up like this. But here's a Trichoptera (moth-like insect) larva.




Some animals are plenty big enough to see, but to really see the details we need a 20x lens. Such as the little legs on a Brazilian fire worm.


Or the scales on a butterflies wings.



Some plants and animals are never really visible to the naked eye. Such a this tiny jellyfish.



Diatoms were tiny aquatic algae with glass (silica) skeletons who have been leaving their bones behind as far back the Jurassic period. You see them usually in toothpaste and reflective road lines.





The shape of diatomic skeletons is so fascinating scientists can't resist making nerdy microscopic artwork. Some of these also incorporate butterfly scales and possibly other small scale materials. This first is all diatoms and it's obvious why I love it.





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A scanning electron microscope (SEM) is one which uses electron beams (as opposed to light beams which have less resolution) bouncing off gold coated objects to image really, really tiny objects. Or the details on much larger objects such as insects. You can't use electron microscope to view living tissue, these are all fixed specimens. Here we see the antennae of a wasp and the hairs on a mosquito.





Or you can step back and see the whole monster:


Arrow worm


Moth

Some images from the science photo library. SEM images are only in black and white so all of these have had color added later to create distinctions between subjects and the background. We'll start with a photo of some mites.




(Someone's about to get owned)

Again some butterfly scales



And it's proboscis.



Our pal the fireworm. Oddly enough they live in the sea.



A nematode worm that secretes digestive enzymes from a pouch behind it's rather frightening mouth.



Salmonella can survive weeks outside the body. This is actually a transmission electron microscopy image, which is similar to an SEM in that it uses electron beams but instead of scanning the surface of an object the beam passes through thin sections of a specimen.



Water bears has to be the cutest name for a slightly less cute species but they can SURVIVE IN SPACE. Basically they can handle almost any temperature and any environment, including a vacuum. You have to admire their tenacity.