Completely oblivious to the environment around me, I sit perched on my lab stool with shoulders hunched over and elbows aching from resting them on the hard benchtop for so long. With intense focus and eagerness, I peer into the eyepiece of the compound microscope that is assigned to me, [hardly needing to blink]. After a few seconds of focusing in and out with the coarse knob, the organisms suddenly become clearer - a handful of opaque blobs swim around the slide, occasionally bumping into each other and scurrying away. I then turn the revolving turret quickly and precisely to bring the low power objective lens above the slide, and feel a wave of contentment fill my mind as I hear it click into place; it is second nature to me. Finally rotating the fine knob, the humble paramecia are magnified 100 times under my view. …show more content…
During this particular session in my Modern Biology lab at Suffolk County Community College, I watched the ovoid-shaped paramecia gracefully dart and glide within a 1-millimeter diameter field from above like football commentators from a gantry, or like passengers on an airplane looking down upon the land below them. Simply observing these organisms never fails to evoke feelings of amazement and awe: at just 225 micrometers long, the single-celled paramecia are about 7,000 times smaller than me. As a microbial spectator of sorts, I am able to surveil the activities of these protozoa: they feed on bacteria and yeast, they create their own propulsions with hair-like cilia that protrude from their membranes, and they reproduce via binary fission (quite literally duplicating themselves before splitting in
Because of its size and abundance, T. californicus is commonly regarded as the insect of the sea. This creature is generally very small, from 1-3 mm in size as adults. They are cylindrically shaped, and have a segmented body (head, thorax, abdomen) though no noticeable division between body regions (Powlik 1966). Each segment of the body has a pair of legs. They use their 'legs' to propel themselves through the water in short rapid jerks. They have 2 pairs of long feathered antennae, a chitin us exoskeleton and a single eye in the middle of their head, this simple eye can only differentiate between light and dark.
One can almost feel the searing penetration of Lewis Thomas’ analytical eye as it descends the narrow barrel of the microscope and explodes onto a scene of vigorous, animated, interactive little cells—cells inescapably engrossed in relaying messages to one another with every bump and bounce; with every brush of the elbow, lick of the stamp, and click of the mouse…
The Great Barrier Reef is home to a remarkable number of organisms. The coral itself is made up of the skeletons of tiny, flowerlike water animals called polyps, held together by a limestone substance produced by a type of algae. Hundreds...
N fowleri has three stages of their cycle. In the amoeboid trophozoite stage, they are infectious and measure 10-35 µm long. The trophozoite transforms to a non-feeding flagellate when food sources are limited. Flagellates are motile and measure 10-20 µm in length. The amoeba or flagellate will form a cyst, the dormant stage, if the environment is too cold and not conducive to continued feeding and growth. When the organism is in the cyst stage, it has a single layered wall and only one nucleus. The cyst measures 7-1...
Manning G. The Use of Drosophila in the Lab [homepage on the Internet]. (CA): 1997 Mar. 27. [cited 2011 Mar. 4]. Available from: http://http://www.susqu.edu/facstaff/r/richard/drosophila%20guide.html.
For this lab students were instructed to pair off into partners, receive a planarian from one of the TAs, place the planarian in a dish, measure it to the closest millimeter, and then carefully cut it into two pieces at one of the three possible locations; behind the head, about the middle, or near the tail. The partners were then to pick one piece to keep and one to dispose of to observe over the next several weeks. (Planarian Project:
Land, M.F.1965. Image formation by a concave reflector in the eye of the scallop, Pecten maximus. J. Physiol. (Lond.) 179: 138 153.
The purpose of the lab was identify and differentiate the types of eukaryotic microorganisms with the use of a simple compound microscopes and to illustrate what was seen. To view this microorganisms prepared slides containing algae, yeast, fungi and protozoan were used. The slides were shared but each student viewed the slides individually with the use of their own microscope. Each slide was viewed at different magnifications of 4X, 10X,
I have dabbled in photography for the sake of personal aesthetic for a few years. I own my own camera, and I believe I know enough about shutter speeds, ISO, and aperture to take a decent photo. I haven't taken many photos over the past couple months, but it would not be hard to pick it back up and begin shooting
Characteristics common to model organisms are small size, short life cycles, rapid development, quick availability and tractability, and no danger working with them. Many species are good models because we have extensive knowledge of them due to previous research. Two of the most important traits for effective model organisms are small size and rapid life cycles. Ideally, they should be small, as large amounts of progeny will be produced. Large organisms would need a lot of...
Throughout my life, I have loved to draw. Due to my love of drawing, I decided to take a career in something that has to do with art. A few things have happened in my life that has caused me to take this path. Three people that I have interacted in some way, are the reason for my choices.
The observations of a particular phenomenon from biological studies of this species may be at least partially valid for the other species. Model organisms make possible to produce more simply studies that are difficult or impossible for technical or ethical reasons. One of the most important conside...
The earthworm grips the soil using small, hairlike forecasts known as setae. Each segment from the earthworm has teams of setae that act somewhat such as the oars of the rowb...
Reading and writing have been and always will be a part of my life. At a very young age I used to love the both of them. I would write stories about monsters and fantasy worlds and I would read about them too. Slowly as I grew older my ability to write so creatively just withered away. Writing soon became only for school purposes. My love for reading continued, but I was no longer reading about the fantasy worlds with unicorns and fairies, instead I became keen to reading crime fiction. Although I had a love for it, it no longer became something I would do daily, it is now done whenever I have the chance to.