Microscope Project: Insect Wings

As one of my first projects after cleaning up my old microscope, I decided to look at some insect wings I had found in my yard last summer: a cicada and butterfly. I posted about the cicada back in August shortly after I found it in the grass. The wing was the only part of the butterfly I found; the rest of the insect must have been dinner for some other creature. Both wings had some dust accumulated but made easy subjects. I looked at them with the magnifying glass first - in the same way I had looked at the peacock feathers last week.

The framework of the cicada wing near where it joined the body of the cicada was a nice green color and looked very sturdy in the magnifying glass (image above). When I looked at it with the microscope, bristles were evident and the color became even more sticking (three levels of magnification below).

The structure of the butterfly wing using the magnifying glass was just barely evident(image below). It already does not look as smooth as a butterfly wing observed without magnification.

The three levels of magnification show below makes the scales that for the butterfly wing more obvious!

Gleanings of the Week Ending February 1, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Bomb-Sniffing Rats - An organization in Tanzania trains African giant pouched rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis.  I was more interested in the TB aspect to this story rather than the bomb portion. Once trained, a rat can screen 100 samples of sputum for TB in 20 minutes!

The World as an Apple - A video using an apple to demonstrate how much arable land there is on earth from the American Farmland Trust

Interesting and Overlooked National Parks in America - Some of these have gone on my ‘future vacation’ list.

Fantastic Kaleidosopic Light Paintings Created in Camera - Long exposures and moving lights to create images.

How Parents and The Internet Transformed Clubfoot Treatment - Hurray for the non-surgical solution!

Global Footprint Calculator - If everyone lived the lifestyle of the average American, we would need 5 planets. I did the calculator for the way I live and the answer was 3.9 planets (so I am better than the average American but still pretty far from sustainable).

Setting the Context: A Brief History of EdTech - Infographic (click on the graphic to enlarge or get the graphic in PDF form here and enlarge within the reader) about how technology has evolved in society, business and education from the 1980s to today.

Intimate Portraits of Bees - From National Geographic.

Nature Soundmap - Recordings of natural sounds from around the globe. I listened to several and will come back to listen to more. They have that quality of being gently invigorating and relaxing at the same time.

Two recent posts from Richard Watson: Could the BRIC (N11 and MINT) wall fall? and Issue 34: Society and Culture (and other topics…listed on the right) 

Russet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I started a sweet potato vine back in October when I found a sweet potato had sprouted before I could eat it; I posted about the lush houseplant it has become earlier this month. Just after that post I discovered a russet potato that had sprouted. I cut of the end that had sprouted and put it in the same large pot as the sweet potato and it is growing very rapidly. The two short stalks to the left in the picture above are the russet potato. The sweet potato vine winds around the pot and some of its leaves are visible to right.

Tomorrow I’m going to rig a grow light so that both plants with thrive until I can put them outdoors for the summer. The pot is large but maybe not large enough for both of them!

Botanical Print Clothes

Looking around my closet - I find quite a few fabrics with botanical images.

Some images are made with embroidery - done with a machine like on the neckline of a dressy T-shirt and big shirt….or hand done on the artisan shirt.

There is a saguaro cactus made with points of metal on a black T-shirt.

There is a poinsettia made with folds of a one-size-fits-all top. The picture in the slide show below is the top when it was on the hanger. There is additional white that shows when it is on a person.

I bought a skirt with a red and black border at the thrift store. The flowers are glittery while the background leaves are black - very dramatic.

I like the rose of the tapestry jacket…..and based on the comments I get when I wear it, others do too.

All in all - I like the plant images on clothes. How many botanical fabrics do you find in your closet?

Previous post on Botanical Print Fabrics: June 2012

Peacock Feathers - Through a Magnifying Glass

I’ve posted about peacock feathers before. I have several vases of them around my house so they were readily available on a recent cold afternoon when I wanted a photography project. I decided to try photographing through a small magnifying class. I used both a black and white piece of acrylic for the photographic platform. The resulting images were round (the field of view of the magnifying glass. I then clipped the best portions of the resulting images for the slide show below.

It was very obvious how much of the color in peacock feathers is structural rather than pigment. The angle of light and the camera caused a quick change from drab brown to iridescent green and blue. I was pleased with the results with the magnifying glass and am anxious to try the microscope soon.

Robins in Maryland

A flock of robins came to our neighborhood with the sun after the big snow storm earlier this week. It was bitterly cold (in the low teens and breezy) so they fluffed their feathers for warmth and looked very round. They seemed to like the maple tree that is visible from my office. I took the pictures for this post through the window!

There were other birds around that morning too. A blue jay sat in the top of the maple - very alone compared to the robins. There was a small flock of blue jays in the neighborhood last summer and I hope to see them frequently again. There was a woodpecker that was examining our tulip poplar but must not have found anything interesting since it did not stay long. On the other side of the house, the juncos are eating the seeds left on the stalks of the blazing stars from last fall; the cats watch them through the window.

Catching Snowflakes

Snow was swirling around my house a few days ago - and I decided to make an attempt to photograph snowflakes. The wind was blowing enough that even the covered part of the deck was getting a dusting of snow through the screens. I put a red glass plate, a magnifying glass and a camera into a covered plastic bin and put them out to cool down.

About an hour later, I bundled up in coat and gloves. I waved the plate around to catch some snowflakes from the air outside the covered part of the deck. The flakes were very small. The magnifying glass was enough to hint at the magical shapes snowflakes can have.  But ---- it was too cold and windy to perfect my technique. I took a few pictures and went inside.

Later with I looked at the images I'd captured, I  was encouraged by the blurs (caused by being on the edge of the field or bad orientation of the individual flake or clumps of broken crystals rather than intact snowflakes). I'll definitely try again next time it snows! Next time I'll rig a light box (so there will be light under the red plate), cool down a towel along with the other gear to wipe off the plate so I can make multiple attempts, and find a place out of the wind to work!

Between the Gaylord and the Potomac

This is my third post about my walk around the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center week before last (the previous posts were about atrium plants and ice crystals). It was a cold but sunny day when I was there. Aside from the ice crystals - there were some other sights between the glass wall of the atrium and the Potomac River. The white and purple kale had grown lacy like the plants often do mid-way through the winter.

The topiary twists and globes appeared to be weathering the cold as did the neatly trimmed Gaylord logo.

The peeling bark of the birch, the oval shapes of magnolia leaves and the needles of pines added other textures.

Looking out to the river, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge with its drawbridge was in the distance. Ice extended out from the shore.

But the startling event was a gull swopping over the pier to drop a shell (which cracked open)…and then he gull alighting to enjoy breakfast!

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 18, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Over 4,000 Reasons to Love (and Protect) North America’s Native Bees - many agricultural plants are primarily pollinated by native bees (rather than the honey bees that were brought from Europe that are uniquely equipped with the tools and techniques required to do the job. )…and they are declining.

Web Soil Survey - The WSS interface allows you to find out about the soil for a specific area in the US (i.e. an address). It’s provided by the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service. Reports can be generated about the suitability of the soil for specify uses. For example, I requested a map about the suitability for houses with basements for my neighborhood. Where my houses sits was coded ‘green’….but at one edge of the neighborhood it was ‘yellow’ because the soil changes and there was another small area that was ‘red.’ This would certainly be a resource to check if you were building a house or buying one in an unfamiliar area! The builder can take steps to overcome the soil suitability issues….and avoid wet basements! There is also a site that provides the detailed descriptions of soils here. Did you know that there are 26,000 soil types in the US?

Ray Archuleta Soil Health Lessons in a Minute - Short videos about aspects of soil health from the USDA NRCS. Watch the one about the benefits of no-till farming!

Spectacular Photos of a Powerful Volcano Erupting in Chile - Awesome power of the earth to reshape itself.

Long-Forgotten Photographs Reveal Challenger Disaster As It Happened - Most people old enough to remember January 1986….know where they were and how they found out about the Challenger. It’s one of those sad, defining moments for the psyche of the US.

The truth about technology’s greatest myth - The impact of technology in our lives is not straightforward at all…there are positives and negatives...complexities…unintended consequences. Technology cannot be evaluated without the context of the people and societies using it - which means that it isn’t ever simple or entirely rational.

Which scientific ideas do we need to get rid of? - Some answers from some prominent thinkers

Salman Khan’s TED Talk ignited the conversation about online education. Why he’s doubling down on the school of the future - How can education keep up with the pace of the rest of society and the cultural nuances around the globe? One pathfinder is the Khan Academy.

European word translator - Enter one or two lower-case English words and see translations overlaid on a map of Europe!

5,900 Natural Gas Leaks Discovered Under Washington, D.C.: A Dozen Locations Had Concentrations High Enough to Trigger Explosion - Aging infrastructure can be dangerous…and very wasteful.

Atrium Plants

This is my second post about my walk around the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center last week (the previous post is here). The resort has a large atrium area that has pleasant tables and benches amongst lush plantings. Balconies of rooms on the upper floors make up three sides of the atrium with the roof and the Potomac side letting in lots of light. The building was mostly neutral colors and the outdoors was frozen in winter so the deep green foliage and occasional colors were very welcome. There were Bromeliads,

Hydrangea,

Cyclamen,

And zantedeschia.

Zooming - January 2014

The ‘zooming’ post for January includes botanicals from outside (curly bark, magnolia leaves, leaves and twigs of a bush under ice and snow, a deteriorating shelf fungus) and inside (hydrangea, Christmas cactus, Norfolk pine, lilies, amaryllis) plus a pitted shell in the rock garden and the fringe of a holiday tunic.

 

 

 

 

 

Microscope Memories

Over 35 years ago when I was in college working on an undergraduate degree in biology, my husband and I bought a microscope. The one we chose was as good as or better than the ones I used in the labs at school:  objectives, spider silk guide lines, wooden carrying case.  It was ordered from a local company and took several weeks to arrive. The microscope was a major purchase for us (I remember thinking that it cost almost as much as a used VW Beetle!). There was reciprocity involved in the decision since he owned a telescope and we were spending money to tweak it (cold cameras, mount modifications, new guide scope, and electric socks come to mind) and it was loosely tied to his physics major. The plan we both had was to forge ahead to grad school in our chosen fields and our hobbies would align with our academic work. Our ideas about what would come after graduate school were still vague and seemed very far in the future.

A few years later as I began graduate school, I decided that computer science was so much fun (I had supported us through our undergraduate years with programming jobs) that I decided to do graduate work in that field instead. There was not enough time for a microscope hobby so the microscope was carefully stored away with the idea that when I did have time, it would be a hobby I would start again.

The microscope was only unpacked a few times in the intervening years. We bought a student microscope that attached to our computer for my daughter when she was in elementary school. The quality of the image was not very good and the software didn’t work with current versions of windows by the time I wanted to use it a couple of years ago when I started this blog. That device was jettisoned but I still wanted to restart the microscope hobby. Recently I decided to buy microscope imager for my original microscope. It replaces the eyepiece and attaches to my laptop via USB. I dug out my wooden box of slides and cover slips. The prepared slides dried out years ago and were thrown away; there are only three slides and covers left!

It is a rude awakening to realize that I have forgotten a lot in 30 years! I will need to read up on microscope maintenance (it’s been in its wooden box for a long time) and decide on what other supplies I need aside from a few more glass slides and covers - immersion oil and stains come to mind. Once I decide what I need - I’ll have to order it; online ordering and shipping has certainly improved since I originally worked with this microscope but it is not instantaneous. I’m excited to be fiddling with the microscope again!

There will be a series of mini-projects - things I want to view and then write a blog post about. Feathers and plant material and molds are high on my list. My goal is to have at least one microscope based post a month. Stay tuned for my experiences restarting an activity from my early 20s!

Ice Crystals

Late last week I accompanied by daughter to the last day of the American Astronomical Society conference held at the Gaylord National Resort & Conference Center just outside of Washington DC on the shore of the Potomac River. She had a couple of hours of sessions to attend and I enjoyed the sights of the resort. There will be several posts over the next week or so from that experience.

It was a very cold day so we were bundled up when we arrived and I headed back outdoors as soon as we agreed on the place we would meet each other when her sessions concluded. I walked out to the pier jutting out into the Potomac from the resort property. In warmer weather, there is a boat that carries tourists across the river to Mount Vernon and Alexandria. It would be a great excursion with a family in warmer weather. But on this day in January, there were plates of ice in the water where the boat would have docked. I didn’t see any boats out on the river.

But the pier was still quite scenic for its vantage point for ice crystals at the edges of the ice plates and also to hear the ice moaning as the bright sunlight started the slow process of thawing the accumulation of ice of the past week when the temperature was well below freezing.

 

 

Sweet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I am enjoying a sweet potato vine as a houseplant this winter. It all started back in mid-October when I discovered a sweet potato had sprouted.  I cut off the sprouted end before I cooked the rest of the potato.

The sprout grew so rapidly in the saucer of water that within a week, I bought a planter box and soil. I included some shells still in the bag brought back from some beach vacation years ago on the top of the soil; pouring water onto shells works well to avoid holes dug by water.

At first the pot looked huge compared to the tiny plant but it continued to grow rapidly. It got pretty tall by early November before falling over and beginning to act like a vine about a month from the time it was planted.

The vine twined around a stick in early December.

In late December, I threaded the end of the vine through a metal sculpture.

In just 3 months indoors the vine had grown around the planter box and leaves spill out over the side. The bright green foliage is welcome in the deep of winter. It sits on the window end of the kitchen table where it gets sun on sunny days and supplemental artificial light for cloudy days and extra hours. It’s the best houseplant I’ve ever had!

I’m going to put the box outdoors after the last possibility of frost and anticipate that the planter box will be full of sweet potatoes by next fall!

US Botanic Garden - December 2013 - Part III

This is the last of the posts with images from our visit to the US Botanic Garden back in December. I could not forego posting about the poinsettias. The conservatory is full of them during the holiday display every year - in baskets, surrounding models of Washington DC landmarks and

Snuggled around miniature towns.

But my favorite part of poinsettias is the center of flowers….and that part is the focus of the slide show below.

Outdoors in Maryland - January 2014

Outdoors in January is cold and the eye searches for colors other than brown or white. The green of the pines under snow is a relief the eye. Our mind conjures comparisons for the snow: whipped cream, flocking, blankets. It was very cold after our first snow of the year and the yard stayed pristine and windswept for more than a day; we didn’t venture out and neither did the deer.

When the sun came out, the melt began even though the air was still well below freezing. I ventured out to take pictures of seed heads from last summer’s blazing stars looking very much like a bottle brush,

A twig blown from the oak tree standing upright in the snow,

A woodpile topped with snow in a yard trampled by deer and children,

Icicles that formed on a bush from the drips off the gutter above, and

The frozen gush from one of the downspouts.

Most of the snow was gone within 24 hours. The gutter was clear and the only snow remaining was from piles created by snow plows.

I prefer the trees with green leaves…but being able to see the large wasp nest built last summer in a nearby maple is some consolation.

And the sycamores always seem even more beautiful in the winter with their white bark. These lean over the street as if it were a river.

US Botanic Garden - December 2013 - Part II

The orchid room at the US Botanic Garden Conservatory is one of my favorite places - not matter when we choose to visit. It is always lush with vegetation and a variety of orchids.

My favorites are always the slipper orchids - with a backdrop of green, dripping with moisture.

It is easy to imagine this form translated to a slipper for a human foot with a rounded toe and ribbons to tie around the ankle. It is not quite clear what would happen to the hood.

Or what about imagining the slipper orchid as a design for a backpack to carry a baby - the ribbons would be used to attach it to the mother’s back and the hood would be a sunshade! Some of the slipper orchids even seem to contain padding that would fit well into encouraging this imaginary translation.

The smells of the orchids all blend together in the orchid room to make a rich perfume - noticeable and pleasantly rich without becoming overpowering. I can’t share that with you but the slide show below gives you more visuals of the orchids found there last month.

Gleanings of the Week Ending January 4, 2014

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Quinoa, Apricot, and Oat Muffin Clusters - Yum! I made these yesterday. There were some substitutions since I ‘made do’ with ingredients I had around the house: spiced fruit preserve instead of apricot paste, sesame seeds for the nuts/seeds, tahini instead of almond butter. I also used muffin cups that I had had for years (found recently when I was re-arranging the cabinets!).

Heat maps reveal where you feel emotions in your body - Hmmm….so people that are happy are physically warmer!

Beyond the Core: What about Other Important Outcomes? - What topics do you think are missing from the common core for K-12 education? Use this article to jumpstart your thinking.

Stranger than Fiction (Plant Biology) - An intro to the January issue of The Scientist online magazine. Read the full articles too: Plant communication, plant DNA challenging preconceptions about the evolution of life, and gold in plants.

Attacking Fungal Infection, One of World's Major Killers - When we think of microbes that kill we generally think of bacteria or viruses, but fungal infections kill 1.3 million people per year. I remember the mycology class I took (a long time ago) in college because of the beauty visible through the microscope: it was a blue world (dye) with complex structures. Reading this story makes me wonder if there were too few people from my generation that chose to pursue medical mycology and if our medical system has tended to focus only on the non-fungal microbes. Here’s another fungi story published this past week about How Mushrooms are Changing the World’s Winds.

Meditative Moments Found Within Dramatic Landscapes - If I went for a walk, there would be some places close to my house that look like these images! I took a few pictures from my door and decided that the wind and temperature in the teens made it too cold to venture further.

Marvelous Snowflakes - A video about how they form…in keeping with the view from my window in Maryland today!

The Best Wildlife and Nature Photos from NWF Staff in 2013 - My favorite is the pitcher plants (toward the end) but the sandhill crane (the picture after the pitcher plants) just visible in tall grass is a close second. And here is a group of nature photos from National Geographic: Rainforest Bugs and Best Wishes for 2014!

Elder Pharmacology - Many clinical trials exclude patients over the age of 65 as well as patients taking multiple drugs. And one of the key findings by gerontologists is that the biology of a young body is quite different from that of a young body. Put these together…and doctors medicating patients over 65 are virtually ‘flying blind.’ The status quo is not acceptable.

The book we all wish we could have read as children - I’ve added Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison to my wish list (The NPR article that is referenced is here.)