Calvin's Jar

Here's a picture of the jar. Calvin collected plants and rocks and dirt from the yard, filled it with water, sealed it with the lid, and let it sit in the sun for a few months. There's a nice layer of green scum clinging to the sides--I'll have to check it out one of these days. I wonder how many different creatures are living in there.

Microscopic Battleship

We found these things in Calvin's jar with rotting vegetation, and they reminded me of the old game of battleship. Microscope is at 400x. Are they microscopic animals swimming around? Or are they just microscopic plants (such as diatoms) floating around in convection currents created by the microscope light? Based on the way they all speed up around the same time and by looking at the collision between two of them, I think it's the latter. What do you think?

It Moves!

We scraped some green stuff off one of the poles under the Oceanside pier and added some ocean water. Here's one of the creatures we found in it (at 400x).



Does anyone know what this is? We didn't add any stain to the sample. Is the green part chlorophyll? Is it a type of phototrophic bacteria? Please post a comment if you know or have any ideas.

Christmas Germs from Calvin's Jar

Back during the summer, Calvin put water and various plant material in a sealed jar and left it in the sun for all these months. We finally opened it up and decided to see what was inside. Our first discovery were these red and green balls--perfect for Christmas. I think they're bacteria, and I think some are red because I added Eosin Y which stains the outsides of cells red.

This one is at 400x.

And this one is at 1000x. There's one in the lower right corner that appears to be in the middle of dividing (it's bigger than the other red ones). I think the two dark spots are the two copies of the DNA which get separated before it divides into two. In this picture, I think the green ones are a different type of germ.

We haven't found anything moving in it yet, but we'll keep looking and take a movie if we find something.

If anyone knows what these things are, please post it in the comments.

The Microscope

The microscope we want is a National Optics DC4-156-S. It's goes up to 1000x and has a camera so we can take pictures and movies to show everyone.

We've been really good this year, so hopefully Santa will bring us the microscope tonight!

Merry Christmas!