‘Make It Shine’: Biologist and Microphotographer Highlights Tiny Creatures With Dye and UV Light
- Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:06pm by
Liz Klimas
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A water flea illuminated using fluorescent dyes and UV light. (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
Some of the world’s tiniest organisms can appear rather bland whether viewed by the naked eye or through a microscope. One biologist and “microphotographer” though is jazzing them up a bit using chemical dyes and turning them into educational art.
Using fluorescent dyes and UV light, Daniel Stoupin puts an artistic spin on the micr0-biological world. In his latest blog post, Stoupin explains that he uses the dyes to capture images of things that otherwise would be “very unlikely to catch your attention”:
What would you do if you look through a microscope into a Petri dish full of dead stuff and find a rotten, mutilated, and disgusting looking underdeveloped embryo of a water flea being consumed by fungi and ciliates? That’s a weird question! Of course the best thing to do is to put some fluorescent dyes in that ugly mess to make it shine!
A worm in the family oligochaeta. (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
The same worm photographed from the side to show its setae moving. (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
The Daily Mail explains that Stoupin, a biologist whose hobby is bringing us his different viewpoint of the microscopic world, has to take several shots at different focuses through the microscope and then layer them together to create a single image. The Daily Mail has more from Stoupin on his work:
“The single issue that motivated me into doing this kind of photography was that most images made through the microscope are bad in quality, have poor resolution and are hard to make even though what you see through oculars is very spectacular.
“Fluorescence adds more challenges and after many struggles and trials I started practicing on random creatures from the pond, then I got totally absorbed by that activity.
“I take pictures of everything that I see, and life through the microscope is amazing as you get to see the most bizarre and peculiar creatures.
“All of the creatures are freshwater or invertebrates such as rotifers, water fleas and worms and most of them are completely invisible to the naked eye.
“A microscope can be used like a regular photography lens, and you attach a camera, turn on the ultra violet light and press the shutter button.
“But, you can get in-focus areas and blurred ones so I use a technique called stacking.
“I make many shots of the same object and then combine the pictures in software on the computer.”
A plant seed with various fluorescent dyes targetting different structures. The nuclei of each cell are visible. (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
Water fleas (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
This process, Stoupin explains, can take days to weeks. A few months ago, Stoupin released a video explaining the world “we don’t see,” showcasing organisms under high magnification. Watch “Microscopic World: Life That We Don’t See”:
Stoupin doesn’t always capture the microscopic world using flurescent dyes. He also takes shots au naturel.
Freshwater copepod. (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
Cnidarian (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
Mayfly nymph (Photo: Daniel Stoupin)
Check out more of Stoupin’s images here.
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bkpleng
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 4:15pmBeautiful images. But what has happened to copy editors? The correct term is photomicrographer not microphotographer. It is not enough that the words be spelled correctly, we need to be using the right words. We need to get back to depending on the wetware (the brain) instead of the software.
Report Post »gryffn
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 2:58pmIt’s MACRO photography…
Report Post »And why is this disintegrating into a religious squabble?
My goodness, can’t we just wonder at these creatures and agree that they are fascinating?
RichEG
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 2:36pmDYE!!!! ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT!!!!!
Where the hell is PETA?????
Report Post »NoelArmourson
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 12:03pmMagnificent work, beautiful images.
Report Post »lionshield
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 11:43amhey,anyone got some fresh filtered water? ! that mayfly, I would call a water-ant.
Report Post »lionshield
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 11:42amtest
Report Post »riseandshine
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 3:35amI’m amazed at the technology, to be able to see these tiny creatures moving about in such clarity on our computers screens.
Report Post »suz
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 2:53amjust beautiful.
Report Post »MammalOne
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 1:37amCool! Nice photos. What an amazing little world going on all around us.
Report Post »RABinMD
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 11:38amAND in us!
Report Post »Stoic one
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 12:35amNice work!
Report Post »SurhanSurhan
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 10:33pmAllahu Akbar! Allah creates whatever He wishes to create. When He has decreed a matter, He merely says to it, be, and that thing is. The same way He created Jesus, He merely spoke it and Jesus came into being. No need for Allah to beget.
Report Post »hi
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 9:56amYou worship Satan. Mohammad was a pedophile and abused women and so are his followers. Mutilating women’s private parts is evil and so is stoning them to death. Women have no rights in your religion. Blowing up people is wrong.
Jesus is love.
Report Post »Ichgelingen
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 12:10pmFriend,
Report Post »You are mistaken about Jesus. Jesus is called “The Word,” as it is His words spoken that created all. He IS the Creator; John 1:3 and 4 says, “All things were made by Him (the Word, see John 1:1 & 2, “and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and this life was the light of men.”
Jesus Himself tells us in John 3, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,” meaning His Son who was not adopted, but His in His Essence. There is certainly no need for God to have sex and beget in the human sense; anyone who says that God had sex with Mary is teaching a pagan perverted lie. However, He did become human and be conceived in a virgin, and be born, that He might share with us, His creation, in all of our human sufferings and experiences, and that He might die for us as the only sacrifice for our sin, and that He might become the first to rise from the dead. This is why Jesus, who is God the Son, is called “the only begotten Son.” We become children of God by adoption when we repent of our sin and ask God to forgive us through His sacrificial death for us. Jesus, God the Son, becomes our Lord and “Elder Brother,” and God the Father becomes our loving Father to whom we may pray at any time.
I will be praying for you, my Friend, that you might become my adopted brother, and that I may see you in the home of my Father someday.
hi
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 12:55pmICHGEL
Report Post »That’s what I meant. I shouldn’t have gotten my dander up. That will just drive her away.
heartitorleaveit
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 6:24pmBlazers:
What kind of narcissistic freak (other than a troll or surhansurhan), would spend so much time on the message boards of THEBLAZE, with absolutely NO SUPPORTERS for his position? How tragic that an individual would be so depraved for attention that he would actually enjoy the constant rejection surhancyberjihadsatan secretly relishes. What a withered little troll all shacked up with his newfangled computer feeling such power.
Deep down inside he wants to join us. But alas, poor surhansatan, he cant! His countrymen could kill him with no fear of retribution if he admits the errors of islam, or were to apologize on behalf of islam for thousands of modern day murders in the name of allah. So with sword in hand he waits for the end to come. Murderous, deeply seeded hatred, filled with deceptive beguiling darkness, from his youth.
How sad. :[
On a lighter note:
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, The Bible is the worlds best-selling and most widely distributed book. A survey by the Bible Society concluded that around 2.5 billion copies were printed between 1815 and 1975, but more recent estimates put the number at more than 5 billion.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction/
Great fun here:
Report Post »http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7QJKEyumw&feature=fvwrel
:]
Rayblue
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 10:07pmHow do they push the button on a camera that small ? Some kinda micro miniature, fantastic voyage little finger or something ?
Report Post »MammalOne
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 3:37amIt’s actually like a Honey I Blew Up The Kids deal where he makes these creatures 100x their normal size. There are still reports of giant water fleas eating people’s family pets to this day.
Report Post »the_truth_or_not
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 10:04pmMaybe its because I don’t have the mind of a microbiologist, but the first few pics were kinda cool to look at, but I found myself glad to reach the end of the story rather quickly. Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to downgrade his work, It sounds like he has labored hard, and it is spectacular, but I just dont find it holding my interest.
Maybe it says something about me?
Report Post »ThePostman
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 9:06pmOh look! Democratic voters!
Report Post »Exrepublisheep
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 9:42pmRepubes can’t just see the beauty in ANYTHING. The world’s just 1 big conspiracy to screw them over. Sad really.
Report Post »Collegeboy
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 1:43amya exrepublisheep lets talk about woman’s rights and how the GOP wants women to die! but you do have a point, this is not political this is beauty, something positive in this world. We need positive things or we would go insane.
Report Post »Onowicit
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:31pmDisgusting stuff that glows…wooooo aahhhh.
Report Post »AB5r
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:30pmIsn’t evolution amazing? Just think, you were a bug like that billions and trillions of years ago!
Report Post »Pontiac
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:45pmOur ancestors were, I wasn’t. And the earth is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old, not trillions.
Inb4 creatards.
Report Post »scuba13
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:52pmCan you explain to me why the liberal brain has never evolved?
Report Post »whatthecrazy
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 9:35pm@Scuba It just can’t
Report Post »AB5r
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 9:42pmBillions, trillions, they honestly haven’t the first clue. In any case, even if it was trillions, that wouldn’t be enough time, statistically, mathematically, for all of the mutations to occur, even one every few seconds, to quote unquote “evolve” a human being from primitive cell organisms.
Report Post »Pontiac
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 11:18pmSigh… Oh look, a creatard.
Report Post »[honestly haven’t the first clue.]
Yes, yes they do. It‘s clear you’re the one that hasn’t gotten the first clue.
sndrman
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 1:15ami always wonder in Genesis where Moses tells of how GOD “gathered some dirt and formed man and breathed air into him”so how did Moses know what 6 thousand years ago that our make up of our bodies has the same as what’s in the ground minerals and the such. How did Moses know before modern science? kinda give me a strong belief that perhaps the BIBLE is a true living word of GOD….so if we’re from the sea why does our bodies have the same makeup as the ground minerals…..oh well your not gonna change my mind from creation to evolution….
Report Post »Truelytruely
Posted on March 21, 2012 at 10:01amEverything cant be explained but you can find truth if you look. You cant give someone truth if their heart isnt right so this will pursuade nobody of anything in my experience. Evolution is simple. You take millions of years of the fossil records for apes and millions of years of fossils records for humans. From that you can deduce they existed in history. Then you take millions of years of the missing link fossils or the thing inbetween them ….no sorry not even one. Thats not even the compelling evidence. The missing link linking a dog to a cat a bird to a reptile a fish to an aligator. There is no fossil missing link evidence that this has ever occured would be the reasonable persons deduction. People blindly believe the “experts.” Who are these people? I’m a police officer and my experience with experts are they are paid liers. Paid to say what they are paid to say. Frankly to believe in evolution is a huge leap of faith scientifically so I turned to the bible. Is that really so ignorant? And no I dont believe in millions of years. Natural selection does occur but that has nothing to do with evolution when you look at the evidence. Again … another story.
Godspeed.
Report Post »1casawizard
Posted on March 20, 2012 at 8:28pmYou might get the nut jobs on ya for using dyes and UV light. It might disrupt their reproductive cycle or something. Great pics, tho.
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