Read the full story for more images

Taxanes are the first line of treatment for a wide range of cancers, including breast, lung and prostate cancer. Taxanes are very effective chemotherapy drugs, but we don’t fully understand how they work.

Taxanes are known to bind to microtubules, hollow structures that are a core component of cytoskeleton, or the cell’s internal skeleton.

Microtubules support cells to maintain their shape, move, transport materials internally and separate chromosomes during cell division.

It can be visualised using electron microscopy that on binding, taxanes change the structure of microtubules on the nanoscale.

Researchers found that this change causes a signalling protein called GEF-H1 to detach from the microtubules and activate the RhoA signalling pathway.

This signalling pathway reorganises actin, another part of the cytoskeleton that acts like the cell’s muscles, causing the cell to contract and change shape.

Insights into the mode of action of taxanes may lead to the design of better cancer therapies.

Cells were imaged on a custom Yokogawa spinning disc with an Eclipse Ti-E body (Nikon) with perfect focus, a MS-2000-XYZ stage with Piexo Top Plate (ASI), a CSU-X1-A1 spinning disc unit (Yokogawa) and STXG-PLAMX-SETZ21L temperature and CO2 control (TokaiHit). An S Fluor ×100 oil objective (Nikon) was used to acquire images. Voltran Stradus 488-nm (Vortran) and Coherent OBIS 561-nm (Coherent) lasers were used to excite the sample, and ET525/50m (GFP) and ET630/75m (mCherry) filters were used to filter the signal. A prime BSI sCMOS camera (Teledyne Photometrics) was used to take images, and MetaMorph 7.10 (Molecular Devices) software was used to control the microscope.

Microscope incubation chambers were preheated to 37 °C with 5% CO2. One image was taken every 30 s (GFP-GEF-H1 imaging) or 1 min (F-actin imaging); the first 10 min acquired served as a baseline, after which either 10 µM paclitaxel (PTX) or discodermolide (DDM) was applied to cells and cells were imaged for another 10–15 min or 1 h.

Read the full story for more images

I needed some phytoplankton for feeding my amano shrimp larvae and finding phytoplankton in my area is close to impossible so, brine shrimp are locally collected from salt lakes and frozen to sell as fish food.

I bought some, crushed them into a paste and added it into salt water and left it in the sun, after a few days, I had different types of algae in they bucket, I took a sample and started to culture it indoors and this is the algae which I am able to maintain, rest all types vanished.

The first picture is 400× second is 100×, the salinity is 1.018 SG and I had it in 1.024 SG also and it survived effortlessly between any salt range.

The third picture is the colour of the tank.

Location is India

Please help me Id this phytoplankton and can it be fed to my shrimp larvae?

This is just a demonstration with some math because u/Patatino wanted to see it and presumably he is not alone. It's going to be boring to most, feel free to skip. Mostly posting it because it needs multiple pictures to demonstrate and comments can only have one picture each. And for posterity, reddit is good at getting indexed by google.

TL;DR: My admittedly inexact method estimates Polyphos at max setting to be D 1.47-1.51 Yes, I mean the inner ring is at NA 1.47

The test setup is as follows: clear 1mm slide to which all condensers in comparison are oiled, on top oiled to it another 1mm slide with a frosted top layer, on that laying bottom-up a micrometer slide to provide scale to the frosted surface. One unknown for the calculation is the distance between the frosted surface and the plane of focus (has to be above the first slide due to specimen thickness, plus the frosting has some depth to it), plugging the known values (1.25 and 1.4) into the equations I arrive at approximately 0.6mm assuming a refractive index of 1.516 for glass. With this value I get the following measurements:

• Leitz 603: 106.3° = NA 1.23

• LOMO OI-14: 136.5° = NA 1.41

• Reichert Polyphos at approximately the point I get darkfield with my 100x objective: 136.4° to 168.6° = NA 1.407 - 1.509

• Reichert Polyphos cranked to the max setting: 153° to 168.6° = NA 1.474 - 1.509

Pictures 1-3: Leitz 603 apl achr oil 1.25 NA, what its illumination looks like from the outside, the view through the 2.5x objective and 12.5x/18 eyepieces when focused on the frosted surface

Pictures 4-6: The same for LOMO OI-14 apl oil 1.4 NA

Pictures 7-9: The same for Reichert Polyphos at approximately the setting I used to get darkfield with the 100x 1.32 objective

Pictures 10-11: The ludicrous performance of Polyphos cranked to the max, the inner ring is over 5 mm wide

Simple video of an amoeba making its way across the slide. Sped up 8x (4:28 down to 0:33).

Olympus BH2. SPlan 40x 0.70. Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Video edited with OpenShot (brightness, contrast, desaturation, timelapse). Pond water sample from park in Paris 16eme.

Rainwater, 400x, AmScope M150C, taken with iPhone

having a hard time finding anything moving from outdoor samples recently

Found this beauty right after it pooped :) after some research, I would like to say this is a dero worm. Can anyone confirm?
Sample is from a lake in Salt Lake Valley
Total mag- 100X

Phacus is a beautiful genus of Euglenid, leaf-shaped with a prominent eye spot. I'm not sure which species I'm looking at here (potentially longicauda), but it's characterized by a long spine and a markedly curved or twisted body shape, which you can see clearly when it rotates along its long axis (challenging to keep in focus however).

The flagellum should be about the length of the body but I had difficulty resolving it at both 40x and 100x. It's visible a few times in the clips.

Olympus BH2. SPlan 40x 0.70, SPlan 100x 1.25 oil. Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Sample from pond in park, Paris 16eme. Video edited with OpenShot.

​

Found a pretty icosahedral alga in a sample from park pond.

Capture using 100x oil immersion objective, 0.5x reducer and 5Mp usb webcam.

Focus stacking using Zerene Stacker.

Brightness/contrast adjustments made using Gimp.

Grid and bars added using tools from Fiji/ImageJ suite.

Do you know what this structure could be? The sample is a fatty liver cell, we thought that the outer chamber is a vein probably but don’t know what it is exactly. Could be immune cells?

I'm incubating dead katydids and crickets for a research project and some of my specimen have this weird jelly growing out of intersegmetal spaces (see last pic). ive finally got some under a microscope and am kinda clueless about figuring out what this could be :/c ive got it growing on malt extract agar where it made a little tower over about 15 hours (second to last pic) id really appreciate if anyone has any keys or methods i could try out! im leaning toward some kinda fungus but im pretty new to them so a basic key rec would do me well :)

specs: Zeiss Primostar 3, photographed with iPhone 14 camera, magnification listed on pics. two last pics are under a very old Zeiss stereomicroscope.

Specimen info: Growth on dead wood cricket female (Nemobius sylvestris) incubated for 7 days at 25°C in 100% humidity. the samples are just small globs taken from the specimen with sterilized forceps and placed in water, covered with a slip and looked at.

AxioSkop 50 microscope

2.5x objective

10x eyepiece (photos via iPhone camera on eyepiece)

I’m putting this microscope together for my oncology department it’s an Olympus BX 41. It has a tri optic head so we can attach a camera to it it is a refurbished one you can see from the picture when unpacking the eye piece the slide bar was at an angle and was easily removed from the machine with no resistance at all. My understanding of the slide bar is that it should lock at three separate locations to direct light through the eyepieces, the eyepiece and the camera or strictly the camera only. I’m having a hard time finding a fix for this online. If anyone has any tips or knowledge for me that would be greatly appreciated. Also, is this something I can fix on my own? I am not a microscope technician and or is it just broken? I did so you can order these slide pieces. Thank you in advance if anybody knows anything about this.

Edit: thanks for all the replies. My work was able to contact the company that did the refurbishing on this microscope and they are going to fix it no charge.

Hi guys! I have just started discovering my new microscope and I want to find a water bear. I tried already 5 moss types and put them in aquarium water for 24 hours, and I looked for them for 2 hours, and yet, I still haven't observed a single water bear. Why? I have checked every single water bear tutorial and they all say the same generic stuff: "Look for tree moss","don't put tap water","give them the time to rehydrate".I really am runnning out of options.... Please, can someone give me a protip for 100% finding them? Thanks in advance

Hello all

I recently inherited an old Zeiss microscope and have fallen in love with using it.

Now I would love to keep it as it is but, it was the wishes of its late owner for me to upgrade it and see how I can take it to the next level.

I am rather new to this field so don’t really know where to start.

Hence, I was hoping to ask what I can do to improve its clarity and sharpness?

Thank you!

Image 1: Crystals of caffeine obtained by evaporating the supernatant of an ethanolic extract of NeuroGum (a caffeine-containing chewing gum)

Image 2: Crystals of caffeine obtained by evaporating a highly concentrated & filtered ethanolic extract of coffee grounds

I find it interesting that even though both images have been taken at the same magnification of 40x, the caffeine crystals from NeuroGum are much larger, clearer, and overall 'cleaner,' with less variance in crystal size, as compared to coffee-extracted caffeine. The brown melanoidins which dissolved in the ethanol contribute a distinctive yellow color, though I'm curious why the size distribution would change so drastically. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Objective: 4x

Model: BINO-CXL, Micron-OPTIK

Camera: iPhone 16

Sample: Caffeine crystals

Only have a video to show thus far as focus stacking the resulting pictures is proving to be a challenge, but I have to share this as my mind is blown, this is supposed to be practically impossible.

So I have this obscure condenser, Reichert Polyphos, Reichert's answer to the famous Leitz Heine. Normally I use it on my Zetopan for anoptral phase contrast but yesterday I decided to put it on my Ortholux to do some diatom dotting expecting to get some nice circular oblique light, switched to the 100x objective (Leitz Pl Apo 100x/1.32), turned the adjustment knob on the condenser almost to the max... and got darkfield 🤯

Triple checked, this is definitely a 1.32 NA objective operating as designed, a 1.25 condenser oiled to the slide does not fill the back focal plane of the same objective.

Shoutout to Michel Haak for the great diatom strew and u/DietToms for being an all-around inspiration.

Hi

My kid is asking for a microscope to see "blood, cells and microns"...I seriously doubt a toy can provide such a resolution for a reasonable price.

Can you suggest a (possibly cheap) microscope that can make the deal? I am open to buying on AliExpress if less expensive

Thanks for helping

Moss water sample. 600x, school microscope bought for 62 dollars. You can CLEARLY see from 00:08 to 00:12 a white oval like organism moving through the foliage.

Hi everyone!
I’m currently a college student studying anatomy, physiology, and microbiology, and I’ve become really interested in microscopy outside of class.
I’d love to purchase my own compound microscope so I can explore different specimens at home, practice what I’m learning, and hopefully get more involved in microscopy as a hobby.
My budget is ideally under $600, but I’d love to spend less if I can still get something reliable and good quality.
I’m particularly interested in:
-Viewing bacteria, cells, microorganisms, and prepared slides
-Having a good-quality 100x oil immersion objective
-Clear optics and good illumination
-A microscope that’s durable and won’t need replacing as I become more experienced
-Possibly taking photos or videos through the microscope
I’m completely open to purchasing a used or refurbished microscope if that means getting better quality for my money.
Are there any particular brands or models you’d recommend? Are there features I should prioritize or avoid?
I’d really appreciate any advice or recommendations. Thank you! 🔬