Posts of the Category: Microscopy FAQ
Here I answer questions from readers.
What are the effects of air bubbles under the cover glass?
Air bubbles in wet mounts can also have beneficial effects. They may supply ciliates and other organisms with oxygen.
How does alcohol chemically fix specimens?
Alcohol can be used for fixing specimens, but is not commonly used for fixing bacteria.
What organisms can be viewed using a wet mount?
A wet mount uses a liquid mounting medium, in most cases water. It is also possible to make a wet mount using pure glycerine. Wet mounts are temporary in nature and can not be stored over extended time periods. A wet mount is probably one of the most universal ways of preparing a slide. The [...]
Answering Reader Questions
Why is refractive index of mounting media important? The refractive index is important for several reasons. First, it influences the resolution of the image. Second, if the refractive index of the specimen is too similar to the refractive index of the mounting medium, then it may be difficult to see the specimen if it is [...]
Answering Reader Questions
Why use phosphate buffer when making a permanent slide of cheek cells? Assuming, that the buffer refers to phosphate buffered saline, the advantages are that the pH is stable and that the solution is isotonic to the cells. The cells, therefore, do not change shape. The solution is used to make dilutions of the cells [...]
Answering reader questions
And yet again it’s time to answer some reader questions What are the things that all types of microscopes have in common? Microscopes can be very different (see . I therefore limit the answer to light microscopes. Things that optical microscopes have in common include: Objectives, Oculars/eyepieces, stage (carries specimens), light source, focusing system. Does [...]
Q & A: What people searched for
In this post I’d like to address some of the search queries that people typed to find this web site. Naturally people typed many, many more search queries, most of the queries are made of 1 or 2 words. I selected the longer ones for this post. Q: What is the principal advantage of an [...]
