Be eaten behind bars

The Venus Flytrap (Dionaea) is the most spectacular of the meat eating plants. The leaves of this carnivore consist of two parts that can close. When an insect or small spider is touching the tactile hairs when eating from the nectar present on the leaf surface, the folding mechanism is activated. The two parts of the leaf will close within the blink of an eye. ‘Bars’ prevent the victim from escaping. However, the plant cannot be fooled. To be sure that the prey is present, it must touch the six tactile hairs of the leaf twice. When touched once, the leaves will not close.

Venus Flytrap

The microscopic photo shows the glands that are on the inside of the leaf. These glands secrete the fluid that serves to digest the prey

Prepared slide by Lieder

© www.willemsmicroscope.com

Cyanotrichite in a prehistoric turquoise mine.

Cornudella de Montsant, El Priorat, Tarragona, Catalonia.

In the autumn of 2015, we went to recognize the Turquesa mine, also known as Mas de les Moreres mine, with the help of our colleague Jordi Sorribes. This mine is one of the only two known prehistoric copper mines in Catalonia. The other is also found in El Priorat, in La Solana del Bepo, Ulldemolins, an open-pit exploitation of azurite and malachite (Lagarda, 1986; Rafel et al., 2017). A series of archaeological excavation campaigns have been carried out at the Turquoise mine in successive years from 2012 to 2015.

Indicative panel of the special protection of the site. Photo: Joan Rosell (January, 2016).

Neolithic Turquoise Mine. Photo: Joan Rosell (January, 2016).

At the end of 2015, a team of archaeologists from the University of Lleida (Catalonia), led by Dra. Núria Rafel, an archaeologist and professor of prehistory at the same university, worked on the excavation. In this short period of time, and with help of an excavator machine, they uncovered this mine, to document it and take samples of the site before covering it again (Cabós, 2015). The mine is located within the Montsant Natural Park and is protected as a Catalan cultural heritage. For all this, we limited ourselves to recognizing the place and looking for the earthworks around the mine, where we found blue and green spots of all shades (azurite, possible variscite and turquoise and other species pending to identify). But in one of the specimens, when we broke it, we saw some sprays of a different blue colour, very intense, when observed under the microscope it presented small blue aggregates formed by fine needles, it must be said, very aesthetic.

Purple Rain

On and around Mount Etna, Lapillo Vulcanico (Italian) is found all over the place. During explosive volcanic eruptions it falls like rain out of the sky over a wide spread area. The Lapillo Vulcanico from Mount Etna has a purplish color. It is present in thick layers on and around the volcano and can also be found, thinly spread over more remote areas.

Lapillo Vulcanico or Lapilli is a size classification term for tephra, which is material that falls out of the air during a volcanic eruption. Lapilli means "little stones" in Latin. By definition Lapilli range from 2 to 64 mm in diameter. A pyroclastic particle greater than 64 mm in diameter is known as a volcanic bomb when molten, or a volcanic block when solid. Pyroclastic material with particles less than 2 mm in diameter is referred to as volcanic ash. 

Black rust

Black rust is a disease that only occurs on wheat. It is caused by a fungus, Puccinia graminis. Puccinia is a genus of the order of the Rusts (Uredinales). The telia, in which the teliospores* are formed, are black. There are also other rust diseases, such as the yellow and brown rust, but the black variant is the most aggressive. The first sign that wheat has been contaminated with it, is a type of red, rusty blisters on the stem. Then the wheat grains shrivel, the stem bends, and eventually the plant dies and turns black.

Aeolosoma - The strangest worm in the world?

Aeolosoma is a genus of annelid worms like earthworms. But unlike earthworms, these are much smaller and can be found in different freshwater habitats like ponds and streams in many parts of the world. But it's not just in nature you are able to find these as they also inhabit almost all freshwater aquariums, and probably also a huge part of unchlorinated pools. In aquariums they are introduced with food or plants and can sometimes be found in extremely large numbers.

Green fluorescing nucleus

Desmids are unicellular micro-organisms belonging to the green algal families of Mesotaeniaceae and Desmidiaceae. They occur in standing freshwaters. The Desmids on the images are found in a fen in Limburg, the most southern province of The Netherlands.