Pictojam
#microscopy
Watch How COVID-19 Virus Cause Cell Death in Bat Brain Cells
Sophie-Marie Aicher and Delphine Planas of the Department of Virology of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, captured footage of the COVID-19 virus infection causing cell fusion and cell death in the brains of bats (Myotis myotis).In the video clip, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is shown to infect bat brain cells engineered to express human ACE2 enzyme on its cell membrane, which is the entry point of the coronavirus into the cell. The COVID-19 virus infection triggered syncytia, or cell fusion, as part of the virus' evasion of the immune system response, and led to cell death (the red spots) in just 48 hours.This video won Honorable Mention in the 2021 Nikon Small World In Motion competition.Related:We Don't Talk About Covid, No no noView the full clip below.#COVID19 #coronavirus #braincell #syncytia #cellfusion #celldeath #Nikon #NikonSmallWorldinMotion #InstitutPasteur #photomicrography #microscopySee also: Video of Microorganisms Found in the Gut of a Termite Won the Nikon Small World in Motion 2021 Competition
Video of Microorganisms Found in the Gut of a Termite Won the Nikon Small World in Motion 2021 Competition
The 11th annual Nikon Small World In Motion competition winners have been announced. The first place goes to Fabian J. Weston for this amazing video of live microorganisms that live in the gut of a termite.These termite gut microorganisms play an essential role of digesting plant-based cellulose (namely, wood). And they're actually quite difficult to capture on film. It turns out that they are sensitive to light and oxygen levels, and the slightest change in environment can cause both the termite and its guts microorganisms to die."I tried a lot of methods, even preparing my own saline solution. They're very sensitive to oxygen, so I had to remove as much gas from the solution as possible. It was very tricky, and I had to work fast. The video you’re seeing is the result of months of trial and error, a lot of research and perseverance," said Weston in the Nikon Small World in Motion website.#Nikon #NikonSmallWorldinMotion #microscopy #photomicrographyTake a look at the winning videos of the Nikon Small World in Motion 2021:
Horseshoe Crab Embryos Look Like Metroid Aliens
Ph.D. student Julia Van Etten started her project Couch Microscopy when she was recovering from an illness and stuck at home on a couch. She’d go out to puddles, ponds, streams, swamps, and oceans to collect water samples that she’d then analyze with a darkfield microscope.I’m fascinated by her video clip of horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) embryos, shown above in 20x magnification at 10x speed. They look like the alien species from the Metroid video game series!#microscopy #horseshoecrab #Metroid #embryo
Nano Flag: The Smallest US Flag is Just a Couple of Nanometers Wide
When researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas were heating a material of molybdenum ditelluride, they accidentally created the tiniest US flag ever.At just a couple of nanometers wide (thousands of times thinner than a human hair), the Old Glory's stars were actually nanowires composed of six atoms of molybdenum surrounded by six atoms of tellurium, which were created from the parent molybdenum-tellurium 2D layer.From UT Dallas:“We wanted to understand the thermal stability of this particular material,” Kim said. “We thought it was a good candidate for next-generation nanoelectronics. Out of curiosity, we set out to see whether it would be stable above room temperature.”When they increased the temperature to above 450 degrees Celsius, two things happened.“First, we saw a new pattern begin to emerge that was aesthetically pleasing to the eye,” Kim said. Across the surface of the sample, the repeating rows, or stripes, of molybdenum ditelluride layers began to transform into shapes that looked like tiny six-pointed stars, or flowers with six petals.The material was transitioning into hexa-molybdenum hexa-telluride, a one-dimensional wire-like structure. The cross section of the new material is a structure consisting of six central atoms of molybdenum surrounded by six atoms of tellurium.As the phase transition progressed, part of the sample was still “stripes” and part had become “stars.” The team thought the pattern looked like a United States flag. They made a false-color version with a blue field behind the stars and half of the stripes colored red, to make a “nanoflag.”#flag #USflag #microscopy #nanowire #tellurium
Scientists Can Now See Atoms at Such High Resolution that the Blur is Actually the Thermal Jiggling of the Atoms Themselves
Researchers at Cornell University has made new advancements in imaging technology that allowed them to see atoms at record resolution: down to the picometer (one-trillionth of a meter). The resolution is so precise that the blurring they see is actually the thermal jiggling of the atoms themselves.The imaging technique, called ptychography, works by scanning overlapping scattering patterns from a material sample and looking for changes in the overlapping region. Using a 3D reconstruction algorithm, researchers are able to compute the shape of the object that caused that pattern.With these new algorithms, we’re now able to correct for all the blurring of our microscope to the point that the largest blurring factor we have left is the fact that the atoms themselves are wobbling, because that’s what happens to atoms at finite temperature,” professor David Muller said. “When we talk about temperature, what we’re actually measuring is the average speed of how much the atoms are jiggling.”#microscopy #ptychography #atom #picometer
LEGO Microscope: Scientists Built a High-Resolution Microscope out of LEGO Bricks and Salvaged Smartphone Camera Lens
Microscopes are expensive, but scientists at Göttingen University, Germany, may have a cheap solution for budding science lovers and DIYers. They might even have all of the necessary ingredients in their toy bins, if they love LEGO!From the Göttingen University:The researchers designed a fully functional, high-resolution microscope with capabilities close to a modern research microscope. Apart from the optics, all parts were from the toy brick system. The team realized that the lenses in modern smartphone cameras, which cost around €4 each, are of such high quality that they can make it possible to resolve even individual cells. The scientists produced instructions for building the microscope as well as a step-by-step tutorial to guide people through the construction process whilst learning about the relevant optical characteristics of a microscope. The researchers measured children’s understanding through questionnaires given to a group of 9-13 year olds. The researchers found that children given the parts and plans to construct the microscope themselves significantly increased their knowledge of microscopy. For this particular study, the researchers, whose day-to-day research focusses on fundamental biophysical processes, benefitted from the input and enthusiasm of their 10-year-old co-author.If you're interested in building one, here's the free instruction.#microscope #LEGO #microscopy
A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie Made by Moving Single Atoms
IBM researchers used scanning tunneling microscope to move individual carbon monoxide molecules to make the world's smallest movie, according to Guinness World Records. The movie is so small that it could only be seen when it's magnified 100 million times.#IBM #atom #GuinnessWorldRecord #microscopy #movie #worldrecordView the full video clip below:
Privacy & Cookie Policy
DMCA Policy
Website Accessibility Statement