Science-Related Photos: Post & Share Yours!

[~christina~]

I haven't found a thread with this topic so I thought I'd start one.

i'll start by posting these photos. Hopefully they are scientific enough.

[PLAIN]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/2563/bloodshoeprintresized.jpg
Blood Shoeprint.

[PLAIN]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/8298/img0429hj.jpg

Saliva Amylase test.

Post yours!

 

[~christina~]

Come on, I know I'm not the only person with scientific photos lying around. I know there are other scientists around here.*looks under some rocks (but only finds some earthworms)*

Post post post!

 

[Pengwuino]

Which ones the sperm one.

 

[Andre]

The so called http://www.imep-cnrs.com/docu/charcoal.pdf as found in a hole, we dug in the Maatheide, close to Lommel in Belgium at only ~1 meter depth.

 

[drizzle]

Okay, this is one of the SEM photos of Al doped zinc oxide nanopowder... I'm not including it in my thesis, as you can tell the magnification is not enough.

[PLAIN]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/4028/znoal15.png


P.S. ~christina~, spray some acid on them!

 

[~christina~]

Okay, this is one of the SEM photos of Al doped zinc oxide nanopowder... I'm not including it in my thesis, as you can tell the magnification is not enough.

Nice picture. I don't think we have a SEM in our school. Interesting to see.

P.S. ~christina~, spray some acid on them!

Them? You mean the penguin of course.

The so called http://www.imep-cnrs.com/docu/charcoal.pdf as found in a hole, we dug in the Maatheide, close to Lommel in Belgium at only ~1 meter depth.

Very nice, Andre. Were you digging the hole to intentionally look for the charcoal soil layer?

Which ones the sperm one.

None are of the spermatazoa test. I'm not sure if it's legal to post! :

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Nice science related photos. Hope to see more!

 

[drizzle]

Nice picture. I don't think we have a SEM in our school. Interesting to see.

Neither do we, haven't you noticed the French note!
I've send the samples to one of the schools there, I mean France, my prof recommend it.

Them? You mean the penguin of course.

 

[Andre]

Very nice, Andre. Were you digging the hole to intentionally look for the charcoal soil layer?

Yes ~c~ it was the purpose of that hole and we knew we were going to find it

 

[Gokul43201]

Okay, this is one of the SEM photos of Al doped zinc oxide nanopowder... I'm not including it in my thesis, as you can tell the magnification is not enough.

What's the thesis on? TCOs? Photovoltaics?

 

[drizzle]

What's the thesis on? TCOs? Photovoltaics?

Neither, it's a bit odd from what you've expected. I study the effect of changing the Sol Gel [which is a chemical synthesis route] growth parameters on the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanomaterials...

Do I have to go public!

 

[Andy Resnick]

Here's a couple images of diffraction patterns caused by illuminating a 5 um diameter pinhole: one used a laser (can see the effect the iris has?), and the other a white light source- note the chromatic aberrations. No alterations to contrast/brightness/etc.

http://a.imageshack.us/img411/5310/diffraction1.jpg

http://a.imageshack.us/img835/3653/diffraction2.jpg

 

[Ms Music]

When I saw this thread, I thought I must post one of my daughter's elementary school "properties of light" project photo, but Andy beat me to it!

I got bored with the typical pin hole and double slit thingy, so I made a smiley face... LOL

from a smiley about half that size. But it made an interesting picture.

 

[drizzle]

That's so cool Ms Music... Can you make the [biggrin] face?

 

[lisab]

Very nice Ms Music. I went to a Fourier transform applet site and drew in a smiley, and took a screen shot...look how close mine is to yours!

If you want to play with the applet, it's here -

http://escher.epfl.ch/fft/

 

[Monique]

Two images you might find interesting, guess what they are

 

[drizzle]

Two images you might find interesting, guess what they are

A worm and a... Worm.

 

[Monique]

A worm and a... Worm.

You're on to me!

 

[Andre]

You may want to read up on Moniques hobbies, drizzle,

My guess would be Caenorhabditis elegans

 

[Andy Resnick]

I'm guessing a GFP-transfected c. elegans. What's the construct?

 

[Monique]

I'm guessing a GFP-transfected c. elegans. What's the construct?

Yes, these are transfected and integrated (by gamma radiation) constructs. Simplified, the constructs are the following:

1) myo-3-promotor::GFP (GFP expressed in the body wall muscle cells)

2) generic-promotor::mCherry:2B (Cherry marking histones in all cells); hypodermal-promotor::GFP::TBA-1 (alpha tubulin marked in hypodermal cells); myo-2-promoter::GFP (GFP expressed in the pharynx, an easy to visualize marker for transgenic animals).

 

[Ms Music]

Oh my... Thank you Lisab, that is VERY entertaining! I just may wind up wasting my entire Friday afternoon with that applet. Much MUCH easier than making teeny pinholes and razor blade slits. And now drizzle can make his/her own big grins. It DOES appear to have the same results as all my photos with the different pinholes or slits. The biggrin IS interesting, but a kitty face is even cooler. Must not lose my job must not lose my job must not lose my job...

 

[Andy Resnick]

Yes, these are transfected and integrated (by gamma radiation) constructs. Simplified, the constructs are the following:

1) myo-3-promotor::GFP (GFP expressed in the body wall muscle cells)

2) generic-promotor::mCherry:2B (Cherry marking histones in all cells); hypodermal-promotor::GFP::TBA-1 (alpha tubulin marked in hypodermal cells); myo-2-promoter::GFP (GFP expressed in the pharynx, an easy to visualize marker for transgenic animals).

Very nice- do you/your lab make the constructs? I'm wondering specifically about the GFP::TBA-1...

 

[drizzle]

Wow Lisa :!) VERY entertaining indeed, thanks. I thought of doing a dotted circle, amazing!

[PLAIN]http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/811/applet1.jpg

Of course, my BIG grin

[PLAIN]http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/2338/applet2.jpg

 

[Andy Resnick]

If you want to play with the applet, it's here -

http://escher.epfl.ch/fft/

That is really cool- thanks for the link!

 

[Monique]

Very nice- do you/your lab make the constructs? I'm wondering specifically about the GFP::TBA-1...

Yes we make the constructs ourselves and if certain transgenics already exist, we just cross the strains to make doubles. It really is a miracle that you can attach GFP to a tubulin monomer and have it form a functional molecule. There is a concentration dependency though, you need to titrate the amount of construct you inject in order to get transgenics, too much of it is toxic to the cell. The second picture was just a snapshot of a worm that I took when I was screening for double homozygotes of the transgenes, you should see the cells in division! Unfortunately I can't show such a picture, those pictures first need to be published somewhere else

 

[Andy Resnick]

I guess this is a science-y photo- see if you can figure it out:

http://a.imageshack.us/img821/9960/teevee.jpg

I was playing around with the autofocus feature and decided to point the camera that our TV (crt display). When it focused, the moire' pattern appeared in the viewfinder- it's a pentaprism, not a LCD display- even though I could not see it normally.

It's definitely real- it moves depending on the orientation of the camera to the tv, and is not part of the electron beam- I took a series of exposures at 1/30, 1/60, 1/125, etc... and the pattern remained.

It was tricky getting the image re-scaled; the pattern is quite sharp and distinct- try to capture the phenomenon yourself- it was trivial with autofocus.

Any ideas?

 

[drizzle]

Mouse trap!

Just kidding

 

[Borek]

No CRT here to check, but looks interesting.

Is it scientific enough? That's just a rock on the Swedish coast, but if you know what you are looking at, traces of the ice age are obvious. It is not just this rock, all rocks around have similar marks, and all point in the same direction. This particular picture was taken around N 58 deg 45' 32.31" E 11 deg 10' 51.87", but plenty of similar places around.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Mouse trap!

Just kidding

heh... yeah, I needed a white screen to get the best contrast. That is an intro shot from "Between the Lions"...

 

[Andy Resnick]

A colleague here buys scrap wafers for use as substrates- they are super-flat, clean, and absurdly cheap. He gave me one to play around with, and here's the results.

First, oblique illumination- some gooseneck lighting off to the side, using a 4x epiplan:

http://a.imageshack.us/img580/2899/dsc00720u.jpg
http://a.imageshack.us/img64/7389/dsc00723z.jpg

Two points to note: First, the etchings act as (reflection) diffraction gratings, and second, the color changes with rotation angle.

Now a photo combining oblique and epi-illumination (8x epiplan): the field stop was closed down quite a bit, and the contrast is tough because of the difference in illumination.

http://a.imageshack.us/img204/9158/dsc00731pk.jpg

The difference in imaging is striking- there is no color in epi-illumination, and the contrast is reversed. This is why I have had problems taking pretty pictures using epi-illumination, unless other contrast methods (such as DIC) are employed. The other common epi-illumination contrast method is darkfield, and here's an image taken using a 16X epiplan HD (darkfield) objective- this is a 100% crop:

http://a.imageshack.us/img201/7274/dsc00729j.jpg

Clearly, I'm having trouble getting a finely focused image- the viewfinder just isn't good enough, as these fine details are not visible though the viewfinder.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Upon Andre's suggestion, I've tried playing around with an 'extended depth of focus' algorithm. Similar to (confocal) microscopy image stack manipulation, the idea is to take a large number of photos and assemble together only the 'in focus' portions, resulting an an image with both high resolution and large depth of field: two optical properties that act in opposition.

I took a series of images of a 1/32" ball bearing resting on foam, using my 25 mm luminar and my 16mm luminar, and these are the results:

(16mm)
http://a.imageshack.us/img839/254/edof16mm.jpg

(25mm)
http://a.imageshack.us/img801/8995/edof25mm.jpg

I'm not happy with the results- I think there's entirely too much high-frequency noise in the edges of the foam, which may not be clear in the scaled-down images. There are ways to adjust the algorithm- just like deconvolution, there's many, many adjustable parameters, and blindly twiddling values is an exercise in frustration.

One fun aspect to the 16mm: if you can make out the purplish disc in the dead center of the sphere, that's from the frame taken when the center of the sphere was located at the front focal plane of the lens (autoreflection), which let's me image the lens itself.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Not very science-y, but somewhat interesting.

I went deep into my back catalog, and pulled out some bullets I recovered during my time as a USAF contractor- these were lying all over the place, from live-fire exercises. I don't know what type they are, but they weigh about 420 grains, which I think makes them 50-cal, probably vehicle-mounted..

As for science, call it a study in plastic deformation. Also, the high-magnification shots look very similar to modeling clay/moonscapes.

[PLAIN]http://a.imageshack.us/img844/4383/dsc20531.jpg

[PLAIN]http://a.imageshack.us/img837/5718/dsc20561.jpg

[PLAIN]http://a.imageshack.us/img294/9962/dsc20591.jpg

 

[Andy Resnick]

I had a few minutes to play around this week- I took some color interference photos of water on glass using the microscope (10X lens here)

[PLAIN]http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/7117/interference2.jpg [PLAIN]http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/9573/interference1.jpg This is a small section of the whole frame.

This is a variation of the method we developed back at NASA to image fluids in the vicinity of a contact line as part of a dynamic wetting experiment. The fringes indicate the local thickness of the water, and it's possible to measure the absolute thickness to fairly high accuracy. There, we used a monochromatic source and broadband mirrors instead of the dichroic filters normally present in fluorescence cubes to illuminate the sample.

Here, I used the broad-band output of a metal halide lamp through a five-color (Sedat) cube. The cube doesn't have any excitation filters- those are mounted back at the source. The dichroic mirror and emission filters are designed to allow fluorescence with multiple fluorochromes, and without using an excitation filter to select a particular color, I can basically use the cube as a broadband mirror.

An important point is that the source is fiber coupled- this increases the spatial coherence, which improves the fringe visibility. If I had an aperture stop in the epi-illumination path, I could probably increase the contrast even more.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Wonderful!