Thousands of small lenses work together

Seen from the front, the head of the honeybee has a triangular shape, the head of the drone it is more round. On the head are the eyes, antennae and mouth parts. Important glands are located in the head and the main center of the nervous system: a nerve bud that serves as a brain.

A switching station

Ganglia are part of the peripheral nervous system. The peripheral nervous system includes all nerves outside the central nervous system (bundles of long nerve shoots with supporting cells) and small centers of nerve cells the ganglia.

A ganglion is a combination of mainly cell bodies (ganglion cells) with the nucleus of the nerve cell surrounded by cytoplasm without further shoots. This cell body with the nucleus as its center forms the metabolic center of the cell and is sensitive to stimuli. Ganglia function as switching stations for nerve impulses.

Chestnut and the Motic Panthera U

While looking through my new stock of prepared slides, I came across this specimen, a section of a petiole of the Castanea sativa. The Castanea sativa or European chestnut is widespread in Europe and Asia, meanwhile also in other temperate zones. The chestnuts are consumed since ancient times by people. The tree can become very old.

It was not necessary to take multiple photos of the object and stack it. The coupe was cut perfectly flat. The section is stained according to the Wacker 3A procedure (Acridine red -Acriflavin - Astra blue).

Boost your resistance

At the time of the Corona crisis, many people resort to remedies to increase resistance to disease, such as vitamin C and Multi vitamin tablets. These, in this case foam tablets, contain many other substances besides the vitamins. Although the subject ‘vitamin C’ has been used many times in microscopy, it is still fun to view the crystals of these substances under the polarization microscope.

So, no sooner said than done, the tablets are now up for grabs at home anyhow. Dissolve a tablet in water, filter the solution, heat a few droplets of the solution on an object glass over a spirit burner in order to saturate it by evaporation. Let it crystallize patiently, put a cover glass on it and move it under the microscope.

The male Pine Cone

A Pine Cone is a scaly trimmed woody cone fruit of a coniferous tree. There are more than 100 types of coniferous trees. These produce both male and female cone fruits. The male pinecone is the smallest, contains pollen and only lives for a few weeks. The female pinecone is larger and contains (if fertilized) seeds.

Viburnum's annoying ‘hair’

The Viburnum rhytidophyllum or Leatherleaf plant is native to central China and is especially decorative along the roads, even in the shade. The plant is a shrub 3 to 4 m high. The leaves are lance-shaped, 15-20 cm, pendulous, leathery with relief, dark green on top, light green and hairy. ‘Hairy’; that is, occupied with stellate (star-shaped) nonglandular trichomes. Trichomes can have many functions like defence against harmful insects, humidity regulation and even a sensory function. 

Cutaneous Histiocytoma dog

Histiocytoma

A cutaneous histiocytoma is a benign skin tumor. It consists of an accumulation of a large amount of histiocytes in the skin. Histiocytes are cells that are involved in the immune system. We usually see histiocytomas in young dogs up to the age of 3 years.

In a short time there is a skin tumor ranging from a few millimeters to a few centimeters. Usually they are at the head, lips, ears, neck, legs and chest. They are not painful and do not cause itching, unless there is an inflammation. If they start to itch because of the inflammation, it means that the body is cleaning them up. Regularly this swelling looks fiery and choppy.

Flatworm digestive tract

The digestive tract of the flatworm, as shown here of a representative of the Dugesia genus, is not very complicated. 

This type of flatworm lives in fresh water. Flatworms absorb their food by mouth in the middle part of their lower body. A small tube shoots from the center of their body at the food and sucks it into the Pharynx. The fresh food is sent to and through the 'intestine', also known as the gastrovascular cavity. There the food is digested. It is spread on all parts of the worm, where the nutrients are needed for growth.

Wood - a fascinating material

 INTRODUCTION

Wood is a wonderful material. It embodies the beauty and the odor of forests, the ecology of a natural building material and the microscopic aesthetics of a complex 3-dimensional anatomical structure.

The secondary cell wall of plants, constructed of parallel cellulose fibers embedded in an amorphous matrix is impregnated with lignin and minerals as a stabilizing factor for altitude records, e.g. the “Tall Tree”, 112 Meter height, a Sequoia tree from the California National Park. Shrubs and herbs use this principle to a lesser extent.

About tree dimensions. Look for the human. (Source)

For the increasing lack of sand and therefore of concrete as a construction material architects today tend to wood as an alternative. Asian engineers are famous for their buildings made with the help of a bamboo scaffold.

Hong Kong building with bamboo scaffold. (Source)

In Europe, architects are increasingly working with natural materials to follow the ecological demands of their customers. They reinvent proven technology with wood as a basis. From a wooden house to a wooden skyscraper: a big step.

The concept for Germany’s first high-rise building in Germany made of wood. (Source)

WOOD MICROSCOPIC VIEWS

All attributes of wood can be derived from a microscopic analysis. The odor of a Christmas tree (resin channels!), the characteristics of furniture wood, the mechanical stability of timber. A tree trunk with its 3-dimensional structure needs 3 cutting planes to be fully understood: a cross section, a tangential cut, a radial cut.

• THE CROSS SECTION

The cross section is most easy to understand: 

About blood

Blood forms the transport system of the body. It flows continuously to supply oxygen and nutrients to tissue and to remove waste products. It also plays an important role in the defense against pathogens in the body and ensures a constant body temperature. Blood is an important transport medium for hormones. So blood literally means life!

About half of the human blood is plasma. Blood plasma mainly consists of fluid and proteins. The other half of this blood consists of blood cells, namely: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. For example, the red blood cells transport oxygen and carbon dioxide through the body. The white blood cells make harmful substances and pathogens recognizable and harmless. Platelets provide crusting to a wound.

The horsetail – a widespread group of vascular plants with an interesting history

A great part of our fossil fuels is based on distant relatives from our present horsetails. During the Carboniferous, this group of plants attained almost worldwide distribution: arborescent lifeforms up to 30m. The decay of these trees under anaerobic conditions, later additionally under high pressure and high temperatures finally formed coal, still one basis of fossil energy.

Today the horsetails are worldwide in distribution except for parts of Australasia. In Middle Europe a plant height of 1m is remarkable.

The most conspicuous morphological feature of a horsetail is the segmentation of the shoot into nodes and internodes. This is why these plants are also called the “articulate”.

                                               Equisetum telmateia                       Equisetum telmateia (note the jointed stem)

Granulomatous inflammation cat

A granulomatous inflammation occurs when the body, for example, cannot properly clear up an infection or a corpus alienum (foreign body). A well-known example of this is a tubercle (TBC) in an infection with mycobacteria. Then there grows a kind of chronic inflammation with accumulation of neutrophilic polymorphonuclear leucocytes, macrophages, epithelioid cells and giant cells (large erratic cells with multiple nuclei). You can also find lymphocytes and plasma cells in it.

Honey - Try to find out its origin

Honey is one of the oldest food products. Cave paintings from the stone age give witness of how the product of wild bees has been used as the first sweetener, containing lots of positive ingredients for a general healing effect.

Nowadays honey is part of the food industry with its profit orientated mechanisms. Price is an issue, and the cold hurled product needs careful attention and efforts for maximum quality.

The origin of a product in general is essential for tracing the manufacturing steps. Latest since BIO became a quality issue in food industry, foodstuff testing laboratories are looking for hints to find out the nectar and honeydew sources which are the basis of honey. Pollen residuals within the honey give a clear indication about the region of origin. In Europe, honey from Central America is widespread, but not always clearly indicated. Eastern Europe and China are playing an important role as honey producers.

Once the pollen is detected and allocated to a defined plant species, it is easy to debunk imposters. Pollen from tropic plants found in a honey sample declared as a Central European product – a microscope will be the necessary tool to find out. Brightfield illumination is the required method, Phase contrast is not optimal as the pollen grains clearly have a significant 3D dimension, too thick for applying this contrast method. Simple POL contrast may help to find the isolated pollen grains within the honey sample.

Some examples from the Middle European flora:

Leontodon spec.

A perfect sample for understanding the fine focus procedure: Pollen grains from Cobaea scandens

Cobaea Scandens (Jacob’s ladder family) is a widespread ornamental plant for garden and balcony. Domiciled in Mexico, this climbing plant is cultivated as an annual in the temperate zones.

Beside its aesthetics with bell-shaped violet flowers, there are two more aspects worth to mention:

• This plant is pollinated by bats. 
• Tthe large (~ 160 microns Ø) pollen grains of Cobaea show a complex structure which is worth to discover.

Pollen Grains in Brighfield

Panthera UC-Plan and diatoms

Diatom skeletons that are free of their content like chlorophyll etc. are excellent objects to test and compare the quality of microscope lenses. In this case, some pictures of the recently marketed Motic Panthera are shown.

The photos are stacked to show the sharpness over the entire length of the diatom. The actual microscopic images through the Panthera microscope are even sharper. Some sharpness is lost by the camera and the photo stacking program.