🔬 043 - How to make a WET MOUNT of ALGAE for microscopy | citizen science, amateur science project
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 22 июн 2018
- I was again doing some amateur microscopy of pond water. I took some algae and put it under the microscope. Topics covered: taking a pond-water sample and making a temporary (wet) mount.
**** PLEASE SUPPORT ! ****
I am fundraising for a new microscope. It will be used to build an archive of images and also for improving the videos of this channel: Please visit the fundraiser: www.gofundme.com/f/microbehunter
Here is a link to the image archive that I intend to expand with the new microscope: www.MicroWorldArchive.org
**** MICROSCOPE RECOMMENDATION ****
I receive many questions on which microscope one should buy. I recommend the following models for amateur microscopy (Affiliate Links to Amazon):
Children’s/Introductory - Swift or National Optical SS110: amzn.to/2WdS4PX
For Amateurs - Swift SW380T (with phototube) or Swift SW380B: amzn.to/3fu7aIY
👜 Amazon Affiliate Microscopy Shop - Pre-selected products to help you find the things you want US/World: www.amazon.com/shop/microbehu...
Canada: www.amazon.ca/shop/microbehunter
Germany/Europe: www.amazon.de/shop/microbehunter
UK/Europe: www.amazon.co.uk/shop/microbe...
🎬 RUclips Channels - Again much info and advice and fun
Microbehunter Microscopy (advice): / @microbehuntermicroscopy
Microscopic Mysteries - Guess the specimen: / @microscopicmysteries
Microbe Talk - Ask a microbiologist! / @allthingsmicrobes
🎈 Support Microbehunter
Become a Patreon: / microbehunter
💻 Other Links
Main Website - Tons of microscopy info: www.microbehunter.com
MicroWorldArchive - www.microworldarchive.org
Forum - Connect to other microscopists: www.microscopy-forum.com
Instagram - Cool pictures I made: / microbehunter
Facebook - Here I post videos: / microbehunter
✔ Check these Hashtags! #microbehunter #microscopy #microscope 
Наука
This is EXACTLY the kind of things I did in my "home lab"' when I was 8 or 9 years old. I found it so fasinating that I went to college and majored in Biology and ultimately got my PhD in microbiology. So, it was so cool to see someone doing this (as an adult) in your video.
Tip: you might want to try mixing your pond water with your mounting medium or maybe even refrigerating your pond water for a period of time, which should slow down the protozoa so you can observe them.
i want to do that. wait... what were you grades at school?
Microbehunter is a lecturer and teaches the subject. He is well qualified and not an amateur.
also,,make a "mesh" with q-tip cotton and put on slide, drop on sample water,squeeze flat with another slide and replace with cover slide. mesh should trap many organisms in a "pen" smaller than the field of view.
Damn! The fridge.. That's a good idea.
Regarding the ethical question, I think that most people draws a line somewhere about what that is morally and ethical right to mount directly into mounting media. Someone would find it perfectly normal to mount a cat in sirup to look at it for ten minutes, Then discard it. And a lot of people would have had a problem with that but not with mounting an ant. So there is something to do with the size of what is being mounted. And whenever you look at microbes and tiny living organisms through a microscope, their size becomes the new small animal and a spider suddenly becomes a big living animal with complex bodily functions. And the fact that so manny people are able to sympathize with spiders and microbes tells a lot about the human psychology.
Daughter (6 years old) suggested the ciliates were playing tag along the algae filaments!. We could have easily watched another hour of this video, great bio education.
When I was doing research into what to look for in microscopes, I fortunately came across your videos! Before I watched them, I never knew I could be so fascinated with studying something so small, yet with so much meaning. I guess it reminded me of my true love, chemistry. Anyways, keep up the great work! You definitely deserve many more views and subscribers than you have now! I hope your videos influence more people into microscopy. Best wishes!
i love what you do here for the youtube and science community! Im purchasing my first microscope soon and i’m very excited after watching your videos.
Your channel is the best channel I have ever seen in my life. Keep uploading more videos
Thanks for the video, great job following those critters! That was fun!
Very interesting, beautiful shots !
Fascinating!
A very great view of those cells. Very clear view of those cells in there. So helpful and great
#chemoscopy
You've gained a subscriber!
I respect your passion 🌱❤
This video is awesome I usually use water but I learn so much from your videos
Amazing 👏
I love this Chanel and knowledge
*mind blown*
Your kid (atleast I'm guessing that was your kid lol) is lucky to have a cool dad like you :)
I appreciate you channel, because I have a microscope, and I make a researchs...thanks!
I see the world different now that I've gotten the chance to view into this micro universe. I've purchased a microscope in hopes my children might find it just as fascinating. If it leads to a lifelong career, awesome. If not, at least they've gotten the chance to see into this hidden world.
Concerning the ethical question, I return my samples to the source trying damage as few as possible. But I also I would still draw a line with the spider because it has a central nervous system so I know that it experiences a kind of suffering too similar to the kind I experience for me to be comfortable. Every time I come across a dead bug I would pick it to see it under the microscope, but only that way. I know other microscopists that like me, return the specimens to their original place whenever it is possible. From them I learned to avoid using dyes because they harm the microbes.
I also try not to kill specimens when observing them. for example, once I found a tiny spider, and simply by putting the lamel over him, he stood still. then I released him. when I observed an ant, I took one from the garden, put a tiny bit of honey and observed while was eating :) . the I released the ant from where I took it. when I find a dead bug, I am happy to observe it. I do not understand why to kill a being simply for observing it, especially one that feel pain, like us! spiders are beautiful creatures. and since we do not eat them, we do not need them for food...there is no major reason to kill it, as I see it. although there are some crawling things I cannot stand, like cockroaches :)))
Come on its too much
Thank you
Wao it's amazing I enjoy it
I think that it's about the possibility of sentience. Spiders have a greater possibility of having some sort of sentience than ciliates, for example.
7:10 did that guy attack the other guy?
Super
Sir I'm your utmost viewer and do always love your shots under microscope. #LouisViper
Please keep posting!
Will do! I want to post videos where I pass on info (a bit like explaining microscope topics) and also where I observe samples.
My names Mihir to!
I can't wait to get my microscope and take a look at my own pond water
Waooooo, such a great job
Thanks so much for educating others. I enjoyed your video so much and the pictures are just excellent.
I have a question; If I want to make a permanent slide for this specimen you use (algae) you used for future references, please how do I go about it?
Thanks will be expecting your response soon.
Spider on a walk.....
Him: Oh there's a spider there.... Lemme prepare a slide for it!
Spider:Wrong way!!! 😑
f...ing amazing mannn!!!!! you just made my dayyyyyyy......keep up the great work........besides!!! can you do the screening for human skin cells or any type of cells regard human....... cuz that would be aweeeessommmeeeeee...
This dude is so cool!
Which microscope is used for this pond algae
Pls reply sir
Yes, this same ethical question kept me thinking the last weeks (I just started microscopy as a hobby and watching water life). You mount a slide with a drop of water and in it you observe dozens micro-animals, and they are indeed animals and are alive. You spend 20 min or more observing all this life and, taking pictures and etc and, in the end, you dump the slide in the trash. All that life you just saw will be dead in a couple of minutes... it's a very strange ideia when you stop to realize that. But yeah, millions of this micro animals die everyday for many reasons, like a puddle that evaporates, but for some people their lifes don't matter and the lifes of bigger animals does. Where do you draw the line? In my opinion, where you draw the line is just a big bias and have no meaning whatsoever.
dude the meaning of life is to survive and reproduce. its no different for single cells
I agree. I grew up with a microscope and after years of looking at tiny beings kill eachother and die, I realised we are also tiny organisms that kill eachother and die. We are all the same.
What does that mean I relation to his post?
@@chloroplast8611
What about the spider? He's human sized compared to the water creatures.
Where you draw the line is intelligence versus the gains of killing the animal. A spider is not intelligent, it can basically be thought of as a chemical robot, and the knowledge gained from it is also valuable so it is indeed "ethical." However, killing say, a dog, or even cow, an animal that feels pain and is smart enough to realize its miserable fate, just to see what it looks like on the inside is completely unethical. Killing that cow for its meat is debatable because you are getting benefits from killing it and meat is not only healthy but very delicious and the only reason that cow exists in the first place is that we allowed it to survive by taking care of it. Killing a human is obviously unethical, but if killing that single human will provide information that will save many more humans, then it is ethical. Morality is ultimately logical.
They look just like triops
I think the ciliate between 7:36 and 7:52 is a coleps.
i never knew how fascinating these things are until now
im not sure if you have yet or not, but can you make a video of how to find volvox if you have found them before?
@7:50 Coleps
Nice microscope. Were you at the highest magnification (100X) @ 5:40
My God People....ETHICS is a HUGE HUGE HUGE part of science. When people ask "is it right to kill these creatures" or "I don't think you should kill them" or "how would you feel if this was done to you", you don't rail against them...these are LEGITIMATE questions in science. There are entire courses on ethics in science.
They are legitimate questions, but it's also legitimate to contrast not applying the same logic equally. As is mentioned at the end of the video, very little concern is shown about the thousands or millions of microorganisms that are killed. Likewise, people would be much more concerned with a puppy being killed versus a thousand baby spiders. It's a question of where those lines are drawn about what is ethical.
Plastic or glass containers for collecting samples? Great channel!
I use both.
@@Microbehunter I also use both, always transparent. My question is whether the plastic components can contaminate the samples, especially after a few days. Thanks.
How to find paramecium.
Man, I really love your channel. We should do a colab one day!
Thanks! Had a look at your videos as well and I really like the intro (and the one with the ants eating the bird!) Nature is fascinating. I might actually do a video in which I present other microscopy channels on youtube.
do it!! these channels would explode with the edition of more and more interesting tiny things lol
7:20 what are all those tiny creatures moving pls tell me.i want to know
Ashish Chauhan those are probably eukaryotic organisms. They all have in common a big size and a flagellum or cilia to move
5:02 a tardigrade on the top?
Frogs always create heaps of it in water especially when they are making eggs and breeding season
What brand of coverglass do you use? I recently bought a microscope so I am new to purchasing things for it. I ordered some coverglass on amazon, but right out of the container they are foggy and they are also so thin that it is hard to clean them with chem wipes without breaking them.
Mine do not have a brand name on them. The cover glasses should have a thickness of 0.15mm (approx). Foggy coverglasses should not be. They should not break too easily.
ok i should probably try a different kind then, thank you!
7:36 It looks like Coleps to me.
@Microbehunter, alow me to try to help with the ethical question. The short answer is warm heart. That is worth while in any case. The longer discussion.... is first off, as you know we are humans and developed this brain/mind/consiousness thing. And it can create very much a virtual reality as well as understanding the empirical one. So in that empirical reality, as you mentioned all kinds of stuff is dying all the time, and being born. And a small dusting of perspective (and science) immediately shows that the humans and everything we are doign will be completely distroyed soon enough. So the only thing I know about this subject of ethics, is that there does appear to be real value in a warm heart which means caring for others as they live or die. All will die soon enough, so I would no focus too much there. The question is, "are you a bully?" (bad) or "are you a tender hearted person?" (good)
I try to be a tender-hearted person, becasue I do not boost my self-confidence by pushing down on others. I am a teacher by profession and I want to be remembered positively by my students. So I have to choose my words carefully, because they can make a lasting impression (in a good and bad way).
About microscopy and animal-use: Also here one should always keep animal rights issues and ethics in focus, but at the same time one can not (and should not) throw all living things into the same basket. Killing a single-celled organism can not and should not be considered the same as killing a higher animal (who even might have a form of self-awareness). Flushing a jar with algae and paramecia etc. and water-fleas down the toilet after microscopy is ethically not on the same level as killing eg. a mammal for dissection. I release algae and other water organisms back into the pond after observation, not becasue I want to be nice to the organisms (who will now be eaten by fish anyway), but becasue I want to remain true to myself, I want to remain "respectful". On the other hand, one has to be careful that these ethical standards that one applies, do not become a "placeholder", to make oneself feel good. Eg. some people complained when they saw a paramecium die under the microscope. OK, no problem with that. But I have a problem now if they start to feel morally superior, while at the same time ignoring the many other cases where they themselves were contributing to the destruction of biodiversity by their lifestyle. Eg. complain about killing of insects for microscopy and then buying foods that were treated with pesticides (which can really cause a problem). Maybe one could summarize my points with "Beware of double standards". Thank you for the comment. Was an interesting one.
In my opinion, the reason why people don't want to hurt animals (spider) is that it can experience pain or suffering. On the other hand, little microorganism or bacteria don't experience pain because it doesn't have a brain and a nervous system. Very interesting question. P.S. I killed a mosquito in my latest video :(
Yeah, but a lot of these micro animals, A LOT of them, do have a brain and a nervous system and they experience pain and suffering. Any reaction to an external stimuli that makes the being want to run away can thought as pain. I saw a lot of larvae that seemed to be suffering because of the lack of space between the slide and the coverglass. They do experience pain if you define well what is to feel pain biologically. If you define that pain is "a reaction to an external stimuli that causes the being to something to get away from the stimuli" you are forced to say that some plants feel pain because they react to certain external stimuli in a auto-protective way. Of course they don't experience pain as humans do, but they experience pain as rotifers, do, as worms do, as larvae do, as ....
It's a very delicate matter in my opinion.
@@danielribastandeitnik9550
if these microorganisms have a brain and nervous system, it has to be very primitive at best.
The algae is Spirogyra, isn't it? Then, the things which moving is Euglena, isn't it?
The difference between a hunter and a gatherer I see.
1:13 this is what you called
"not collecting water samples"
you mean to tell me that you actually get static because you kill a bug in order to view it in the microscope?
I think in electron microscopes it uses a vacuum so it kills them sadly
@@__prometheus__ Yeah. The big disadvantage to Electron Microscopes is that you can't observe still living things.
How u had captured in camera
The little ciliate you don't know is a colep
There is a rotifer
There is a sect of Buddhist monks who are so against killing any type of organism that they walk everywhere with a special broom, sweeping in front of them as they walk so as to make sure any creatures are moved out of their path and are not trodden upon. However, you have to wonder if they know about the micro-organisms they are most likely ironically killing in the thousands constantly as they do this.
Don’t kill living thing for the video
What a bunch of WHINERS!!!! Do you think Louis Pasteur cared deeply for the microorganisms when he discovered pasteurization!!?? No! It was a ground breaking discovery that changed human history. If it was up to the children in the comment section, we NEVER would've advanced as a civilization. Keep making awesome videos MicrobeHunter!!! You're helping breed the next generation of microbiologists 👍
are you calling me an idiot.
@@vasoconvict I never called anyone an idiot...
Would you feel the same if a race of advanced aliens put you in some sticky goop and studied you as you slowly died?
@@AMadScientist hypothetical and hyperbolic questions need not apply buddy. I'm talking hard facts here...aliens have yet to descend from the sky and proceed to put us under a microscope. Stop reaching for nothing buddy.
Shaad up you moron. I said how would you feel IF it happened. IF...meaning use your brain and tell me how you would feel IF it happened. Get your head out of your ass.
@@OrionIsDaBest777
Is Algae edible ?
I’m not sure if you’re joking or not
@@bananatorpedo275 I'm seriously curious
Yes some algae are used as food, medicine.
Some are edible; some are highly toxic coz they release different kinds of toxin to deter organisms. Evolution I think.
Weil die Spinne ein ZNS hat.
Went to your store They tried to charge twice for duty and vat I opened the parcel it was not what I ordered. points0 /10
you were able to observe the algae alive, but you killed the spider that had a lot to live for. the alge could be returned alive to a puddle, but the spider, which you had little interest in was sacrified. why not observe these creatures alive. they are much more interesting to observe that way.
You talk about the algae, but not the thousands of microorganisms that were living in the water he spilled and had to clean up with paper towels. He mentions this at the end of the video. The reality is that every time you observe stuff under the microscope, you're killing hundreds, thousands or millions of microorganisms. There just is no way to get all those tiny things back into a place where they can live. The same is true whenever you wash your dishes, spray down your counters, etc.
Don't you kill the spider by doing this?
imagine swimming in that pond omfg noo
Higher the life form ,more we feel bad for them.
4:21 is when the video starts
It's about not disturbing other life forms more than is necessary. Yes, a rational perspective should be kept on these things, and this example should not be blown out of proportion. However, the general mindset is what is of concern. Ideally, the samples should be returned to where they came from. What prevents this? Laziness - I get it. But if you are going to make a point to contend that it's fine to kill lower life forms, you ought to have better reasons than your own amusement and laziness.
The issue is less about this specific instance than about how this somewhat self-serving mindset can be extrapolated. (To be clear, I'm mostly concerned about the example it sets for young viewers.) Sorry for being a bit of a gadfly.
not that I have a problem with it, but because the spider is a casualty for an unrelated experience just because it's happened to be near you. Don't act like you don't know the difference
What a degraded water environment. How sad
I like this but please don't kill animals next time...
@@MidnightMixx its amazing how you got more likes than him in his replies. *so is that polish power*
*Peta left the chat to kill pet shelter animals*
*and insult steve irwin*
don't kill spiders
I always try to put the water from my slides back into the samples cause I feel bad for the little guys 🥲