• Question: What is the best and most fascinating thing you have seen through a microscope?

    Asked by Corcks to Hazel, Ellen, Elliot, Rupesh, Thomas on 13 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by Megan.
    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      I think the development of fish embryos is a very beautiful thing to watch. If you google “zebrafish embryo development video” you will be able to watch how an embryo starts out as a little clump of cells which move around and organise themselves into a little fish. I’ll also try putting the video link below, but I’m not sure if they work.

    • Photo: Thomas Biggans

      Thomas Biggans answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I don’t use microscopes in my job so I haven’t seen any new things for some time. One thing I did use a microscope for whe I was at school was to look at the diffraction patterns of light.

      This pattern is called Newton’s Rings and allows us to see that light is a wave.

    • Photo: Rupesh Paudyal

      Rupesh Paudyal answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I look at how things move inside plant cells. The movie below shows the movement of the Endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi in plant cells.

      It’s super cool…I think! Don’t you?

    • Photo: Hazel Garvie-Cook

      Hazel Garvie-Cook answered on 16 Jun 2016:

      I once looked at a tooth in a microscope. Underneath the enamel of teeth (the outside layer), there’s a layer with tiny holes running through it, called dentine. These holes in dentine are around 1/20 of the width of a hair. If your enamel wears away, you start to get painful and sensitive teeth because whatever you’re eating can get to the nerve in the middle of your teeth through these holes. Toothpastes that are designed to make teeth less sensitive have little particles that get pushed into these holes when you brush and block them. I thought it was so cool to see structure of teeth in so much detail and to learn about how toothpastes are designed because of that structure!

Comments