Microscopes and Photomicrography Microthread

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ExecuDork: Feb 25, 2007; We might be fucked, sir.; Fallen Rib

I'm running a kind of informal Art Project for the the School of Environmental and Rural sciences here at my university. The scanning electron microscope, a Jeol 6010 LA, is in a room in the Animal Science department but any university staff member or student can use it after getting the induction and sorting out some billing information ($40/hour moved through intra-university accounts; I dunno ask the finance department).
I've got a research project looking at microorganisms attached to pollinator exoskeletons, which I'm hypothesising is an important aspect of the ecology of flower-living microorganisms. In between endless examinations of honey bee tarsal claws, I image specimens for other people who have research projects not directly suitable to this kind of microscopy but they'd like to see some interesting high-magnification images of their research subjects.

In the lab group I'm a part of (in Environmental Management), we work mainly on pollination, and the insects that do this ecosystem service. One of the other post-docs gave me some blueberry pollen that she'd been treating in various ways as part of her research.

Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 04 - EtOH only by Martin Brummell, on Flickr

Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 03 - glycerol and EtOH by Martin Brummell, on Flickr

Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 02 - glycerol and EtOH by Martin Brummell, on Flickr

Acetolised Blueberry Pollen 05 - EtOH only by Martin Brummell, on Flickr

Another post-doc over in Animal Science is mad about chickens, she describes herself as a "chook researcher" :australia:

We put a few eggshells on some stubs and gold-coated them. Developing chicken embryos steal calcium from the eggshell as they develop; eggs not incubated do not develop so this calcium-stealing does not happen. We thought this might result in some differences between incubated and unincubated eggshells, and maybe including differences on the outside surffaces as well, which explains the odd filenames here.