Posts of the Category: Virtual Microscope
The “Virtual Microscope” allows you to zoom into an image and to explore it in detail. You need a Flash Player to view the images.
Virtual Microscope: Cross section of the earth worm (Lumbricus terrestris)
The image above shows Lumbricus terrestris, the earth worm, in cross section. The red part in the center is the digestive system. You can zoom into the image. The only adjustment done to the image was a color correction. The image was not sharpened.
Virtual microscope: dandelion parachute
This the the parachute of a dandelion seed. The seed is not shown, it is attached to the long extension on the right. The leaves of the plant are toothed. The name “dandelion” comes from the French “dent-de-lion” meaning “lion’s tooth”. The microscopic observation reveals that the leaves are not the only part of the [...]
Virtual microscope: The Tick
This is a darkfield image of a tick. Ticks are blood-sucking arthropods. They possess 8 legs and are not insects, but rather are related to the spiders. Ticks are known to transmit various diseases, such as Lyme’s disease and encephalitis.
For more information on the tick, read the following post: .
Virtual microscope: maple leaf skeleton
This is a scan of maple leaf vascular tissue, done with a normal flat-bed scanner.
Method: Preparing the leaf was the difficult and time-consuming part. The leaf was boiled for several hours until the cells started to separate. I then carefully lifted the leaf out of the pot and placed it on a plate with [...]
Virtual microscope: female pine cone (Pinius)
For more information on the pine cone, have a look at the following post: The specimen size is approximately 20mm from left to right.
Virtual microscope: Aristolochia sipho
If you can not see anything, then you need to install a flash player. The image shows the cross section of the stem of the Aristolochia sipho plant. The image is an inverted (negative) image, and not a dark-field image. Why did I choose to invert the colors? The reason is surprisingly unscientific: it simply [...]