MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Hi toghther,
due to that bloody virus personal meetings have become a rare occasion. So I had this idea: Why not work on a common topic and exchange opinions on it in this forum?

Our MIKRO Hamburg group will have "decentral" meeting over our new own internal forum. But are you interested in covering this subject here too?
It is a very wide area, lint from the washing machine, paper, natural and artificial materials, botanic as well as zoological firbres. Different lighting and contrast setups, fresh or permanent mounts, differentiating staining...

Here a image of part of a spider web, mainly the glue strands of the net. I taughtly spread the net over a 3D-printed plastic box (you can use a piece of black plastic scrap as well) that had a bit of glue applied on two sides. Incident lighting dark field Zeiss Epiplan HD 16 / 0,35. You could use as well a 10:1 or 16:1 objective for transmitted light and supply the light with a flashlight or desk lamp.

Someody interested in working on a common topic?

Bob

Now and then, I have come across microscope slides where a short section of silk has been enclosed in a cell, to make a permanent slide.

Spider silk is said to be the inspiration for some technology applications in modern times, but the excerpt below shows another side;




Many modern fabrics/materials show up well using crossed polars, and one example is shown here;



www.flickr.com/photos/66189529@N08/6250 ... 783466119/

The RMS in their handbook series have one called 'Microscopy of Textile Fibres'.

That’s a very beautiful image, Bob

I would have loved to join this ‘project’ but I have just started trying to ‘tidy the toy-room’ and can’t lay hands on a useable microscope at the moment.

MichaelG.

two rather good articles ...

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... il2005.pdf

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... ay2005.pdf

MichaelG.

MicroBob wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 20, 2020 5:30 pm

Somebody interested in working on a common topic?

Hi Bob,
Years ago I posted some phase contrast and darkfield photos of spider's webs on the forum. I collected them from the hedges around. By simply touching a clean slide to a web (of a tiny spider, who fled away) the fibres easily stick onto the glass. They are very sticky ! ask the flying insects...
Today I would cover the slide beforehand with matt-black coating ( I have some optical black adhesive tape), then collect the web. Yet this week is rainy and cold, and we are under lockdown. Next week perhaps.
What are the drops along the fibers in the photo you posted ? dew (water drops) ?

Here's a tiny little slide called "Japanese Tissue". I don't remember where I got it. I think it was in a box of microfossils I purchased at the fundraiser for the Paleontological Society.
Anyway, here's the photo of the fibers. I'm not sure what type of fibre they are, but I'm guessing rice fibre or something similar.

wstenberg wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:39 am

Here's a tiny little slide called "Japanese Tissue". I don't remember where I got it. I think it was in a box of microfossils I purchased at the fundraiser for the Paleontological Society.
Anyway, here's the photo of the fibers. I'm not sure what type of fibre they are, but I'm guessing rice fibre or something similar.

Fascinating material ... Widely used in the conservation of Books, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tissue

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/conservi ... g-picture/

MichaelG.

Hi together,

wow - you have been very active! It would be interesting too to measure the tensile strenght of such a spider thread. Some common spiders here produce threads that can withstand a couple of gramms so it would be camparatively easy to measure the breaking force. It is said that spider threads are much stronger than steel wire, but while this is probably true in general I don't trust in the quality this information in detail.

My spider web is photographed as taken from outside the house, not too early in the morning, so the droplets shouldn't be dew.
Here is an interesting explanation for the function of the droplets: They keep the net taught: https://www.spektrum.de/news/fluessigfa ... en/1410637

I once have made a small shoji screen in japanese fashion. It is covered with japanese shoji paper. I wasn't able to determine the consistency of the paper but it is 87% of somethind and 13% of something else which may be polyamid. I made stained permanent slides but have to check how good this worked.

Paper often consists of different components like cellulose and wood fibres. These react differently to staining with differentiating stains like Etzold FCA or Wacker W3A. It is best to untangle the fibres first. Toilet paper can be prepared by just pulling the fibres apart in a drop of water. Other papers have to be cooked.

I can post a couple of more pictures later!

Bob

MicroBob wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2020 8:46 am

Here is an interesting explanation for the function of the droplets: They keep the net taught: https://www.spektrum.de/news/fluessigfa ... en/1410637

Many thanks for that link, Bob

The video from Oxford is astonishing

MichaelG.

Thanks for the links.
I've had that slide for years, but never really thought about what Japanese Tissue was. I assumed it was just rice paper. Now I know it's something quite distinct, with applications in art and book conservation.

The British Museum video was great. It was about art, but there were several microscopes in there! including Fourier transform infrared microscopy!

Thanks Bob for the info!

The latest edition of the Quekett Journal has a very interesting article titled "Animal, vegetable and mineral: fascinating fibres, their origins, structures and uses" by Joan Bingley - Quekett President. Joan approaches the topic as a microscopist who is also an embroiderer and textile artist. The paper has a comprehensive reference list covering "fibres" from the disciplines of microscopy, textiles, forensics, archaeology and more.
Michael

I have located the paper about the Spider web droplets:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early ... 3.full.pdf

MichaelG.

Our first decentral meeting is finished and it was a big success! I expected a lot of delays and technical problems, an uneasy atmosphere and a lack of personal contact. But in fact it was a very inspired and personal meeting with interesting presentations, chatter, developing of new ideas and quite a bit of discussion just as usual. We used a Zoom video conference at first and continued with posting images in our little forum and discussion over the Zoom telefone conference, cameras shut off. One of our members has a Zoom account over his employer and can supply the use of it on weekends for now.
I'm really relieved and happy that our courageous choice of coping actively with this crisis situation was such an obvious success.

Here a couple of more images:

Shoji paper, FCA stain, transmitted light
Fibres from a T-shirt, FCA
Toilet paper fibres FAC blue ic viscose, red is wood fibres
Dyneema crosbow bowstring, incident darkfield, stack of a couple of images
Braided Fireline fishing line, stack of lots of images, incident lighting darkfield

Congratulations, Bob

Your efforts seem to have be greatly rewarded.
... Well done, Sir

MichaelG.

MichaelG. wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:22 pm

I have located the paper about the Spider web droplets:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early ... 3.full.pdf

MichaelG.

Michael,
Thanks for the link.
BTW - in some webs that I inspected, there were no droplets at all. Perhaps droplets are specific to the species.

Great photos, Bob.
Polarized light helps to differentiate some fibers from others.
Specimen no 3 (toilet paper) should now be considered very rare and precious under the shortage imposed by the crisis ! to be kept in a locked steel safe !

Hobbyst46 wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 21, 2020 8:51 pm

Specimen no 3 (toilet paper) should now be considered very rare and precious under the shortage imposed by the crisis !

Of cause I have put these stained fibres back into the leaf and rolled it back up!

While our topic was "fibres" we had a pre topic on corona virus and hygienic and disinfectant recipes. This was from 10 days ago when it still seemed very likely to have a personal meeting!

In the Micscape magazine Mol Smith wrote about disinfectant recipes and suggested to add a teaspoon full of thymol. You might know how this smells... This brought us to the idea that adding 1-butanol would lead to a perfect disinfectant as it would enforce even stricter social distancing! Amateur science at the fore front of inventiveness!