Of Microbes, Microscopes and More
The uncertainty is high: The definition of a microbial species, and the difficulty of culturing them contributes to making the estimate on the total number of microbial species difficult. References: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160642/ https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro2644
Try to avoid these mistakes when using a microscope! Here I talk about some common mistakes that I have seen beginning microscopists make. Watch the youtube video here.
If you do not know which parasite to look for, then it can be difficult to identify them. Some parasites can be diagnosed entirely by looking at the symptoms, and a microscopic analysis is not necessary.
In this episode, I will explain the naming of organisms. A basic understanding of this can prove to be quite useful also for the identification of microorganisms under the microscope.
You can see bacteria already at a total magnification of 400x. But magnification is not everything. You also need to have sufficient contrast.
There are several reasons, why you might not abel able to see some specimen features using a light microscope.
In this episode, I give some advice on what you can do to obtain a crisp image using your microscope. Keywords: microscope, focus, image, picture, resolution, magnification
The best microscope is the one that you will use the most often. But on the more serious side: In this episode I will outline some of the quality considerations of microscopes, and this is not only limited to mechanical and optical quality. Keywords: microscope, Friedrich Löffler, compound microscope, Olympus, Zeiss, Nikon, Leica
There are several things that you have to do to get a good picture of fast moving microorganisms: Restrict the movement of the microbes, ensure correct microscope settings, ensure correct camera settings. Keywords: specimen, camera, depth of field, field of view, focus, motion blur, exposure time
