BLOGS
Microscopy is exploration of the tiny microscopic world that exists all around us. From tiny gardens of exotic looking plants living in your fridge to deadly pathogens lurking in the soil and water, the view from the microscope opens a window into this hidden world. The existence of this microscopic world affects every aspect of our daily lives. From the yogurt in our fridge to the very existence of our humanity we humans owe our very lives to this microscopic world.
“If you don’t like bacteria, you’re on the wrong planet.”
― Stewart Brand
Cestoda (Cestoidea)
Aug 15th – Cestoda (Cestoidea) is a class of parasitic worms of the flatworm (Platyhelminthes)…
Trichomonas vaginalis
Aug 14th – Trichomonas vaginalis is an anaerobic, flagellated protozoan parasite and the causative agent…
Diphyllobothrium
Aug 13th – Diphyllobothrium is a genus of tapeworm which can cause diphyllobothriasis in humans…
Sarcocystis
Aug 12th – Sarcocystis is a protozoan genus of parasites, the majority of species infecting…
Rhinosporidium seeberi
Aug 11th – Rhinosporidium seeberi is a eukaryotic pathogen responsible for rhinosporidiosis, a disease which…
Cyclospora cayetanensis
Aug 10th – Cyclospora cayetanensis is a protozoan that causes disease in humans, and perhaps…
Cryptosporidium
Aug 9th – Cryptosporidium is a genus of apicomplexan parasitic alveolates that can cause a…
Entamoeba histolytica
Aug 8th – Entamoeba histolytica is an anaerobic parasitic amoebozoa, part of the genus Entamoeba….
Naegleria fowleri
Aug 7th – Naegleria fowleri can cause an often lethal infection of the brain called…
Balantidium coli
Aug 6th – Balantidium coli lives in the cecum and colon of humans, pigs, rats…
Balamuthia mandrillaris
Aug 5th – Balamuthia mandrillaris is a free-living amoeba that is known to cause the…
Blastocystis
Aug 4th – Blastocystis is a genus of single-celled heterokont parasites belonging to a group…
Dientamoeba fragilis
Aug 3rd – Dientamoeba fragilis is a species of single-celled excavates found in the gastrointestinal…
Cystoisospora belli
Aug 2nd – Cystoisospora belli, previously known as Isospora belli, is a parasite that causes…
Acanthamoeba
August 1st – As summer comes to a close we will spend the next 31…
Wolbachia
July 31st – Wolbachia is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria which infects arthropod species, including…
Rothia Dentocariosa
July 30th – First isolated from dental caries, Rothia dentocariosa is largely benign, but does…
Pantoea
July 29th – Pantoea is a genus of Gram-negative bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae, recently…
Bifidobacterium and Alloscardovia Omnicolens
July 28th – Most of the members of the genus Bifidobacterium, including the related organism…
Enterobacter Cloacae
July 27th – Enterobacter cloacae is a clinically significant Gram-negative, facultatively-anaerobic, rod-shaped bacterium. Enterobacter cloacae…
Ehrlichia Chaffeensis
July 26th – Ehrlichia chaffeensis is an obligate intracellular gram-negative species of rickettsiales bacteria. It…
Coxiella Burneti
July 25th – Coxiella burnetii is an obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen, and is the causative…
Chlamydia Psittaci
July 24th – Chlamydia psittaci is a lethal intracellular bacterial species that may cause endemic…
Chlamydophila Pneumoniae
July 23rd – Chlamydophila pneumoniae is a species of Chlamydophila, an obligate intracellular bacterium that…
Campylobacter Coli
July 22nd – Campylobacter coli is a Gram-negative, microaerophilic, nonendospore-forming, S-shaped bacterial species within genus…
Klebsiella Granulomatis
July 21st – Klebsiella granulomatis is Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium of the genus Klebsiella known to…
Bacillus Subtilis
July 20th – Bacillus subtilis, known also as the hay bacillus or grass bacillus, is…
Bartonella Quintana
July 19th – Bartonella quintana, originally known as Rochalimaea quintana, and “Rickettsia quintana”, is a…
Brucella Melitensis
July 18th – Brucella melitensis is a Gram-negative coccobacillus bacterium from the Brucellaceae family. The…
Bordetella Bronchiseptica
July 17th – Bordetella bronchiseptica is a small, Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium of the genus Bordetella….
Bartonella Henselae
July 16th – Bartonella henselae, formerly Rochalimæa, is a proteobacterium that can cause bacteremia, endocarditis,…
Bacillus Mycoides
July 15th – Bacillus mycoides is a gram-positive spore-forming bacterium of the genus Bacillus. Bacillus…
Geobacillus Stearothermophilus
July 14th – Geobacillus stearothermophilus (basonym Bacillus stearothermophilus) is a rod-shaped, Gram-positive bacterium and a…
Borrelia burgdorferi
July 13th – Borrelia burgdorferi is a bacterial species of the spirochete class of the…
Swine Brucellosis
July 12th – Swine brucellosis is a zoonosis affecting pigs, caused by the bacterium Brucella…
Bacillus Megaterium
July 11th – Bacillus megaterium is a rod-like, Gram-positive, mainly aerobic spore forming bacterium found…
Bacillus licheniformis
July 10th – Bacillus licheniformis is a bacterium commonly found in the soil. It is…
Bacteroides melaninogenicus
July 9th – Bacteroides melaninogenicus is a species of bacterium in the normal flora of…
Brevibacillus brevis
July 8th – Brevibacillus brevis is a Gram-positive, aerobic, spore-forming bacillus commonly found in soil,…
Azorhizobium caulinodans
July 7th – Azorhizobium caulinodans is a species of bacteria that forms a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis…
Anaplasma phagocytophilum
July 6th – Anaplasma phagocytophilum (formerly Ehrlichia phagocytophilum) is a gram-negative bacterium that is unusual…
Agrobacterium tumefaciens
July 5th – Agrobacterium tumefaciens (updated scientific name Rhizobium radiobacter, synonym Agrobacterium radiobacter) is the…
Acinetobacter baumannii
July 4th – Acinetobacter baumannii is a typically short, almost round, rod-shaped (coccobacillus) Gram-negative bacterium….
Actinomyces israelii
July 3rd – Actinomyces israelii is a species of Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria within the Actinomyces….
Comamonas testosteroni
July 2nd – Comamonas testosteroni is an aerobic, motile, non-spore-forming, medium-to-long gram-negative bacillus which occurs…
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
July 1st – Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that can cause disease…
Dame Jane Morris Goodall
June 30th – Dame Jane Morris Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN…
Gregor Johann Mendel
June 29th – Gregor Johann Mendel was a scientist, Augustinian friar and abbot of St….
Albrecht von Haller
June 28th – Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet. A…
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann
June 27th – Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann was an Austrian physicist and philosopher whose greatest achievement…
Nikola Tesla
June 26th – Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and…
William Sanford Nye
June 25th – William Sanford Nye, popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is…
Claude Bernard
June 24th – Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. Historian Ierome Bernard Cohen of Harvard…
James Clerk Maxwell
June 23rd – James Clerk Maxwell FRS FRSE was a Scottish scientist in the field…
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
June 22nd – Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier was a French nobleman and chemist central to the…
Michael Faraday
June 21st – Michael Faraday FRS was an English scientist who contributed to the study…
Niels Henrik David Bohr
June 20th – Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions…
Ernest Rutherford
June 19th – Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, OM, FRS was a New…
Edwin Powell Hubble
June 18th – Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role…
Werner Karl Heisenberg
June 17th – Werner Karl Heisenberg was a German theoretical physicist and one of the…
Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev
June 16th – Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian chemist and inventor. He formulated the…
Robert Heinrich Hermann Koch
June 15th – Robert Heinrich Hermann Koch was a celebrated German physician and pioneering microbiologist….
Neil deGrasse Tyson
June 14th – Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator. Since…
Galileo Galilei
June 13th – Galileo Galilei was an Italian polymath: astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician….
Alan Mathison Turing
June 12th – Alan Mathison Turing was an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher…
Helen Brooke Taussig
June 11th – Helen Brooke Taussig was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 24, 1898…
Sir Alexander Fleming
June 10th – Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist. His best-known…
Marie Skłodowska Curie
June 8th – Marie Skłodowska Curie born Maria Salomea Skłodowska was a Polish and naturalized-French…
Louis Pasteur
June 7th – Louis Pasteur was a French biologist, microbiologist and chemist renowned for his…
Sir Isaac Newton
June 6th – Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (described in…
Carl Edward Sagan
June 5th – Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, science…
Einstein
June 4th – Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was…
Stephen William Hawking
June 3rd – Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after…
Rosalind Elsie Franklin
June 2nd – Rosalind Elsie Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made…
Jonas Salk
A huge part of Microscopy is celebrating the men and women who make advances in…
Rouleaux
May 31st – Rouleaux (singular is rouleau) are stacks or aggregations of red blood cells…
Basophilic Stippling
May 30th – Basophilic stippling a.k.a. punctate basophilia refers to observing a blood smear in…
Cabot rings
May 29th – Cabot rings appear as thin, red-violet-staining strands in the shape of rings,…
Heinz bodies
May 28th – Heinz bodies are formed by damage and denaturing to the hemoglobin component…
Howell-Jolly bodies
May 27th – Howell-Jolly bodies are round, smooth, almost pyknotic, dark-purple bodies ranging in size…
Echinocyte
May 26th – Echinocyte comes from the Greek word meaning “sea urchin,” which relates to…
Acanthocyte
May 25th – Acanthocyte (from the Greek word acantha, meaning ‘thorn’), in biology and medicine,…
Schistocyte
May 24th – A schistocyte or schizocyte (from Greek schistos for “divided” or schistein for…
Sickle-cell Anaemia (SCA)
May 23rd – Sickle-cell (drepanocytosis) anaemia (SCA) is a hereditary blood disorder, characterized by RBCs…
Keratocytes
May 22nd – Keratocytes are erythrocytes with a blister-like vesicle, which may rupture, leaving a…
Stomatocytes
May 21st – Stomatocytes are erythrocytes with a slit-like central pallor, giving them the appearance…
Elliptocytes
May 20th – Elliptocytes, also known as ovalocytes, are abnormally shaped red blood cells that…
Dacrocyte
May 19th – A dacrocyte (or dacryocyte) is a type of poikilocyte that is shaped…
Spherocytosis
May 18th – Spherocytosis is an auto-hemolytic anemia (a disease of the blood) characterized by…
Codocytes
May 17th – Codocytes also known as target cells are red blood cells that have…
Macrocytosis
May 16th – Macrocytosis is a term used to describe erythrocytes that are larger than…
Microcytosis
May 15th – Many people are unaware that red blood cells have different morphological appearances…
Cryptosporidium
May 14th – Cryptosporidium infection begins when the one-celled cryptosporidium parasites get into your body…
Corynebacterium Diphtheriae
May 13th – Diphtheria is caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Corynebacterium diphtheriae is a Gram-positive, aerobic,…
Group B Streptococcus
May 12th – Group B Streptococcus (group B strep) is a type of bacteria that…
Human Polyomavirus
May 11th – In 1971, a human polyomavirus was discovered from the urine of a…