Showing posts with label microscope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microscope. Show all posts

March 10 - Happy Birthday, Marcello Malpighi

 Posted on March 10, 2022 

This is an update of my post published on March 10, 2010:


























Born on this date in 1628, Marcello Malpighi was an Italian doctor and biologist who was one of the first scientists to use a microscope to study living things.


He confirmed the existence of capillaries, which are tiny, thin-skinned blood vessels that allow blood to move out of the circulatory system and into tissues, as well of course as the other direction, from the tissues back into the circulatory system. (Biologist William Harvey had inferred that there must be such things as capillaries but hadn't been able to see them.)

Malpighi made many discoveries, including taste buds and the small holes that insects breathe through, and he contributed to the science of embryology (the science of how creatures develop inside eggs or wombs).

Plus a lot more!
Use a virtual microscope.

The Power of Ten takes you from outside the Milky Way Galaxy all the way to teeny-tiny quarks—but along the way, you will see some pretty good microscopic views of an oak leaf.

Here is video showing microscopic views of ordinary objects. Try to guess what each picture is before the item is revealed!

(Note that many microphotographs have false color enhancement to help our eye pick out different structures.)


Above: What do you suppose this is?

Answer is found down below these other great pics!





Insect head


Algae


Pollen from a variety of plants


Answer to the "What do you suppose this is?" question, above: Velcro





























(Thursday of the first full week of March)

 




Plan ahead:


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May 8 - Happy Birthday, Henry Baker

Posted on May 8, 2021


This is an update of my post published on Mary 8, 2010:

On this day in 1698, Henry Baker was born in London, England.


 He is known for three things:
(1) Baker developed a new way to teach the hearing- and speech-impaired (known then as “the deaf and dumb”). He was able to make a lot of money with his system - which he kept strictly secret.

(2) Baker was the son-in-law of the writer Daniel Defoe. Defoe wrote a lot of things, but nowadays he is most famous for the book Robinson Crusoe, which is considered by many to be the first novel written in English.
(Why only considered the first novel by many, and not all? Because different scholars have different definitions of the word novel.)
Robinson Crusoe is a castaway on a remote tropical island who meets Native Americans and mutineers and has all sorts of adventures before finally being rescued—28 years later!
Baker used Defoe's name and fame when he launched a weekly publication filled with essays; it was called the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal, and it ran about 18 years, with more than 900 issues.

 

(3) Baker introduced the microscope to the general public with several publications, including The Microscope Made Easy.


Science popularizers are important because they increase interest in and understanding of science in the general population, and THAT often encourages young people to study science. 
Also, Baker won a medal for his microscopical observations of salt crystals.

Baker's interests were varied. We can celebrate him by trying a variety of activities ourselves.
(1) Have you ever wanted to learn sign language? ASL (American Sign Language) and BSL (British Sign Language) are complete languages, each with its own grammar.

 

(By the way, the two languages are quite different.)
Here are some resources to try them out: an ASL video dictionary and text dictionary ...and ASL lessons here and here.
For BSL: an introductory video, short dictionary and resources.

 

(2) Here is a super short summary of Robinson Crusoe. And here is the complete version, free online. WARNING: like many old books, this book is horribly racist.
What would you do if you were shipwrecked? Write a story. Maybe you can get rescued in 28 days, rather than 28 years!


(3) Play a "guess what it is?" with microscopic looks at ordinary items. 
If you have a microscope, look at all sorts of things from a human hair to a drop of pond water, from a thread to a leaf.
Above, a human hair; below, wing of a fly 

Above, pond water; below, plant cells

If you don't have access to a microscope, check out this virtual microscope website.
Here's a virtual electron scanning microscope.
Above, butterfly scales; below, an ant's head


 


Also on this date:


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November 19 - Happy Birthday George Emil Palade

Posted on November 19, 2018

Today's famous birthday (born on this date in 1912) has been called "the most influential cell biologist ever" - and I've never even heard of him!

Romanian scientist George Emil Palade won a Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine (along with two others). The achievement that earned him this prize is strides taken with electron microscopes, discovering ribosomes, and procedures used to study different parts of the cell and to discover how they function.

Okay, so what's an electron microscope? What different parts are in a cell? What are ribosomes? 

An ordinary microscope lights up a specimen (with, you know, light) and uses lenses to greatly enlarge the specimen. You can magnify things 4 to 2,000 times with this sort of microscope.


An electron microscope uses a beam of electrons instead of light, to "light up" the specimen, and uses electron lens systems to magnify up to about 10,000,000 times! 

With so much magnification power, we can see the super teeny tiny parts that make up our really tiny cells. These parts are called organelles (just like the parts of the body are called organs).

Notice that, in these two comparisons (above and below), the electron
microscope has way better resolution even when it is at the same
magnification as the light microscope!


 
Some examples of cell organelles include:

The nucleus - This is sort of like the cell's brain. It stores and maintains DNA and makes copies of bits of the genetic code as commands or instructions that other organelles then carry out. 


Vacuoles - These are storage compartments that usually hold water or enzymes in a watery solution. Sometimes vacuoles hold solids.

Endoplasmic Reticulum - This organelle moves molecules to and from the nucleus.

Mitochondria - These produce energy by burning sugars.

Ribosomes - These organelles build proteins.

Golgi Apparatus - This organelle changes newly-made proteins and fats, getting them ready to be stored or to be sent out to other cells.

Cell Membrane - This is like a thin "skin" that protects the cell and keeps some sorts of molecules out while allowing other sorts in.

Cytoplasm - This substance fills in the spaces between organelles and helps hold them in place.


Did you notice that ribosomes build proteins? That's a super-power you really want your cells to have! Proteins are really large molecules made of long chains of amino acids. They are the building blocks of everything from muscles to hair to skin to cell membranes. Proteins also are crucial for lots of bodily processes like digesting food.

And ribosomes are the construction crew that put together these long chains of amino acids, following instructions from the nucleus. 


Here is an animation that helps us understand how ribosomes work. This is another short video on ribosomes and protein creation - this one for younger viewers.

And here are some fun cell organelle projects. Be sure to scroll down to the "More ideas" part!
 



Make a yummy cell cake!


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