Posts of the Category: Howto
Some tinkering with the microscope.
Animated GIF of the leg of a honey bee (tarsus)
Be patient as the picture loads. It is an animated GIF showing the claws of the leg of a honey bee (the tarsus). I have used the free image editing software GIMP to make this picture. The steps are as follows: Take a series of pictures of different focus. Make sure that they are numbered [...]
Using clear nail polish to make impressions of plant leaves
The leaves are the photosynthetic organs of a plant. The cells are packed with chloroplasts, which convert CO2 gas from the atmosphere and water to glucose, using the energy of sunlight. The produced glucose is then either respired and used as an energy source, or it is converted to other organic substances needed for plant [...]
How to prepare squash specimen samples for microscopic observation
Squashing the specimens (instead of cutting them) is a fast and easy way to prepare specimens.
Heat-fixing and staining human cheek cells
Observing human cells is a good introductory activity to learn heat-fixing and staining.
Setting up a Home Laboratory for Microscopy
Why a home lab? For someone who wants to observe ready-made permanent slides or an occasional pond water sample, a fully equipped home laboratory may not be necessary and somewhat of an overkill. In this case it is sufficient to find a reasonably dust-free place to store and operate the microscope. The microscope can then [...]
Using a Hemocytometer to Calculate Cell Size
I already illustrated how to calculate cell size (). The method required you to take a picture of a ruler and then use this as a reference for cell size calculation. This system had several disadvantages: first, it only works for low magnifications (you have to be able to see 1mm of the ruler on [...]
Determining Size in Microscopic Images
Our Biology curriculum in school requires students to be able to calculate the size of cells and other structures from light micrographs, which have a scale bar. It’s probably more interesting for students to actually take the light micrographs themselves. It is not difficult to determine the size of cells and other structures in light [...]
How to prevent Air Bubbles in Wet Mounts
The statistics feature of my blogging software allows me to see what readers are searching for, and one of the questions that keeps reappearing over and over again is the question on how to prevent air bubbles in wet mounts. I have already published a video on how to correctly make a wet mount (temporary [...]
