How to explain it?

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apochronaut
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How to explain it?

#1 Post by apochronaut » Wed Mar 24, 2021 9:27 pm

So, I have been around microscopes for a few years now. My experience is all light microscopy, using many different techniques. While 99% of what I have seen is explainable and fit within the accepted bounds of science, occasionally there have been incidences that stretch the envelope and a few that stretched it a lot.
So, I am soliciting anything anyone has viewed that is close to or not really explainable. Anything will do and a description is enough. I recognize that capturing an image is hard enough let alone something that is fleetingly rare but if you have pictures, that would be great.

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Re: How to explain it?

#2 Post by zzffnn » Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:20 pm

I don't know if these count:

1) the fact that water bears are nearly immortal;

2) how cancer cells can survive most (several lines of treatments) of the modern therapeutics.

These are research and theories on those. But we are not completely clear yet.

ScienceMatters
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Re: How to explain it?

#3 Post by ScienceMatters » Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:15 am

Great topic. For me the big mystery is how tiny unicellular beings without eyes, ears, or brains can behave so much like intelligent animals. Somehow they manage to find food, evade predators (sometimes), extricate themselves from tight spots (eventually), reproduce, and sometimes even seem to have “personalities” of their own, all without possession of a single neuron! I will never not be amazed by that.

What unexplainable things have you seen, Apochronaut?

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Re: How to explain it?

#4 Post by Shivs » Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:18 am

ScienceMatters wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:15 am
Great topic. For me the big mystery is how tiny unicellular beings without eyes, ears, or brains can behave so much like intelligent animals. Somehow they manage to find food, evade predators (sometimes), extricate themselves from tight spots (eventually), reproduce, and sometimes even seem to have “personalities” of their own
This is what constantly blows my mind

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Re: How to explain it?

#5 Post by DonSchaeffer » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:48 pm

You bring up really good questions. There is a lot we don't know.

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Re: How to explain it?

#6 Post by wstenberg » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:51 pm

Many years ago, when I was doing many clinical samples of oral microflora, new would occasionally see organisms that could not be identified (in addition to the normal types of oral amoeba). This was doing phase-contrast or darkfield on fresh, living samples. This was once a routine study for patients presenting with periodontal diseases. We found strange organisms that did not fit in with any known organism. Sort of like the UFO's of the microflora world. Since this was not the focus of our examinations, we did not have the time and resources to examine further. At that time we were videotaping with a huge B&W video camera and VCR tape. Colleagues would often share tapes and speculate about these strange organisms. For many reasons, this type of periodontal clinical microscopy died out in the 1980's. I'm sure there are still many weird organisms living in there, unknown to science, but no one is looking for them any more.
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Re: How to explain it?

#7 Post by apochronaut » Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:05 pm

ScienceMatters wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:15 am
Great topic. For me the big mystery is how tiny unicellular beings without eyes, ears, or brains can behave so much like intelligent animals. Somehow they manage to find food, evade predators (sometimes), extricate themselves from tight spots (eventually), reproduce, and sometimes even seem to have “personalities” of their own, all without possession of a single neuron! I will never not be amazed by that.

What unexplainable things have you seen, Apochronaut?
Fan. Water or Pond Bears càn be joined on the moon with maybe lichen someday, which have sustained 8 days in directly exposed to the vacuum, temperature extremes and radiation of space. Viable bacteria have been collected from the exterior of the space station.

Malignant tumours seem to be a whole other organism. Metastatic cells walk away from the tumour site, co-opting macrophages as consorts. They manipulate cells in arterial walls to become doughnut shaped, allowing them to pass straight through into the blood stream. Afterwhich, they can selectively leave the bloodstream in the same fashion and sequester for as many as 10 years nestled next to the exterior wall of an artery and opportunistically start to grow when conditions are attractive. Gerald Domingue's incredible research of the 70's and 80's accomplished partially with phase conyrast has hinted at a hidden hand in tumour processes, that of bacterial infections manufacturing human hormones in their bioslime, to evade detection.

Directly, through my own microscope, I have two unfortunately undocumented events that made me sit back and take notice.
One was in a urine sample. There was a loose diagnosis of a kidney infection accompanied by severe back pain and sciatica. There was blood in the urine and I was looking for crystals under high magnification phase contrast, which could indicate kidney stones , or a bladder infection not a kidney infection. The urine did not show any crystals but did show a number of fairly even ovoid cells with a defined nucleus. All of a sudden, while trying to determine just what the cells were, about 15 or 20 small spherical bodies emerged from the cell I was examining and each in a very fast wavering to zig-zagging motion went off at great speed in various directions. The 200 micron field was cleared of them in less than 5 seconds. I gave chase and tried to find any of them without success. They were spheroid bodies and probably 1/300 the volume of the cell. There was no cell rupture of any kind. They could have been adherent to the other side of the cell or the cell could have ruptured on the backside but I looked and did not see any cytoplasm cloud or any evidence of that. Never saw anyhing like it before or after.

Two, I recently reported to this forum in a post. I was reviewing a creek /pond water sample that I had had for a long time. Many slides were prepared from fresh dips in the sample and each time the results were the same. The sample had degraded to being mostly populated by bacteria. Many species including a 30 or more micron long gliding species.
About 10 minutes after the sample was prepared numerous of the bacterial species would congregate into a fairly compact ribbon that would stretch many thousands of microns, in one case forming a rough circle that came back to meet itself. The gliding gliding bacteria were not involved in this bacterial mosh session but continued about their usual business , gliding in a more or less linear fashion here and there. Inevitably, this meant that one or more of them would ram into the bacterial wall, which became more compact over time. I witnessed this several times viewing several samples.
A gliding bacteria would become lodged in the bacterial wall, about 1/2 way through. It would pause for 5 or so seconds then back out around 30 microns or so, then try again. It would become lodged again and then repeat. After the 3rd attempt it would back out, pause, reangle it's approach and try another spot. In all cases that I viewed this phenomena the gliding bacteria made it through when it " chose" another location to penetrate the wall.
The gliding bacteria was most likely a species of flavobacteria.

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Re: How to explain it?

#8 Post by DonSchaeffer » Fri Mar 26, 2021 7:00 pm

The question I have is this:
If a protist can tell "which way is up" of "tell where the light is" do they have sensory experiences?

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Re: How to explain it?

#9 Post by PeteM » Fri Mar 26, 2021 7:51 pm

Only partially explained is ATP synthase. ATP powers our life. And it turns out that a tiny protein motor, spinning around 10,000 rpm, is evolution's remarkable bit of engineering behind it. FWIW, it is only in the last 100 years or so that we've learned to make actual motors and spindles (and at a larger scale) spin that fast.

https://www.encyclopedie-environnement. ... synthesis/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639240/

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Re: How to explain it?

#10 Post by Hobbyst46 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 8:53 pm

Here is a quite complicated question, I think.
Human activities gradually deprives the globe of its land vegetation, and destroys marine plants (alga, diatoms). So, Man gradually destroys the main source (or perhaps the only source - I do not know) of available oxygen in air. In the plausible event that these disastrous processes do not stop, is oxygen depletion the worst realistic ultimate menace to the survive of mankind?

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Re: How to explain it?

#11 Post by Wes » Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:22 pm

I like this thread!
wstenberg wrote:
Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:51 pm
For many reasons, this type of periodontal clinical microscopy died out in the 1980's. I'm sure there are still many weird organisms living in there, unknown to science, but no one is looking for them any more.
But why would people willingly abandon such a research niche? Seems impactful but maybe they've moved away from microscopy based to sequencing whole populations and finding new species that way?

Anyway here are a couple of things that I have not been able to explain so far:

Image

Zeiss Photomicroscope III BF/DF/Pol/Ph/DIC/FL/Jamin-Lebedeff
Youtube channel

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Re: How to explain it?

#12 Post by wstenberg » Sat Mar 27, 2021 5:43 pm

wstenberg wrote: ↑Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:51 am
For many reasons, this type of periodontal clinical microscopy died out in the 1980's. I'm sure there are still many weird organisms living in there, unknown to science, but no one is looking for them any more.
But why would people willingly abandon such a research niche? Seems impactful but maybe they've moved away from microscopy based to sequencing whole populations and finding new species that way?
This was not research; it was clinical practice... Back when I did my residency, periodontists were trained to use direct microscopy of the patients' microflora to determine the level and the control of disease. It was a technique validated by tons of research. But in 1988, The Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments re-defined what was considered a clinical laboratory in the US, and periodontists found the new regulations too complicated to navigate. There were a lot of phase-contrast microscopes for sale cheap that year! New diagnostic criteria came out that were no longer based on microbiological parameters using direct microscopy in the office- and that's where we are today.
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Re: How to explain it?

#13 Post by Rossf » Sat Apr 03, 2021 1:03 pm

I’m always amazed at all the ingenious ways testate amoebas create a protective home for themselves-especially the type that perfectly arrange dead diatoms or microscopic mineral particles like master bricklayers and roofing contractors. Seems to indicate brainless microbes share Maslow's hierarchy of needs...but does an amoeba feel love? I did read an article that talked about “midwife amoebas’-that it has been observed when an amoeba is struggling to divide properly, maybe structures too intertwined,another amoeba will dive between to help seperate the duplicates...how does one explain that! Except that amoebas do feel love-only joking on that last comment but amazingly amazballs in my opinion.

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Re: How to explain it?

#14 Post by Rossf » Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:12 pm

Hey Wes I wonder if the amoeba is infected or they are just food doing for a ride until big enough food vacuole is formed-or did the amoeba perish from these invaders
Regards Ross

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Re: How to explain it?

#15 Post by Wes » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:29 am

Rossf wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:12 pm
Hey Wes I wonder if the amoeba is infected or they are just food doing for a ride until big enough food vacuole is formed-or did the amoeba perish from these invaders
Regards Ross
Yes I considered it but the host amoeba doesn't look healthy at all, its just sitting there, rounded up not moving at all.

Looks very similar to what they show in this video with the difference that the ones I found were moving: https://youtu.be/2e-2_WOcuMk?t=359
Zeiss Photomicroscope III BF/DF/Pol/Ph/DIC/FL/Jamin-Lebedeff
Youtube channel

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Re: How to explain it?

#16 Post by Rossf » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:34 am

Wes-Either way they are interesting looking invaders! Is this done in DIC? Nice images and video.
Regards

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Re: How to explain it?

#17 Post by Wes » Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:36 pm

Rossf wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:34 am
Wes-Either way they are interesting looking invaders! Is this done in DIC? Nice images and video.
Regards
Thanks. Yes, this is taken in DIC.
Zeiss Photomicroscope III BF/DF/Pol/Ph/DIC/FL/Jamin-Lebedeff
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