Winter adventures with a Foldscope – microorganisms living below zero

Dec 31, 2015 • 1:12 PM UTC

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Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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The cold winter land reminds of freezing dark spell when life literally freezes, spores and waits for better days to come. This is the myth I walked around in my head; just like winter influences large vertebrates, makes us shiver and seek warmth, so should the single cell eukaryotes, diatoms and algae of this world shiver and escape the cold. Not quiet so actually, as I find tinkering in my winter backyard in Quebec, CA. It’s such a wonderful experience to throw away a myth you harbor in your head, I truly enjoyed this experience. I am yet to write a proper post; but I am quickly sharing all the data I collected over two days of playing in the cold. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a warm spell came along unthawing everything. So not only does life thrive in these cold climates; it’s ready for these dramatic temperature swings that would get our head spinning. Finally, I can say – I enjoy the winter 🙂
cheers
manu
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For sharing this data, I am trying a new plugin – Thinglink to provide context to my videos/images/data such that we always have the surrounding environment and context in mind while exploring the microcosmos. Here is a dataset I am creating for microorganisms in a frozen river (Black River, Quebec, CA). It was indeed a surprise to find so much life in a frozen stream. I am still looking for papers that explore the role of temperature on ciliary dynamics; have not found much yet. This post will expand significantly; but since I am so excited to share this – I will keep this open and visible as I edit the same.

I am trying to fix the viewing experience – in the mean time; you can also click/or go to this link directly on thinglink website.
https://www.thinglink.com/scene/739099816960720896
cheers
manu
Some of the highlights – that have me scratching my head are:

So fast, so incredibly fast – in freezing waters. What on earth is that?
Here is another time it visited my field of view:

Now, this is another strange one – look in the top corner of this video in full screen mode.

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Here are the raw videos. I will slowly link all of them in the Thinglink image; and provide context to all of these videos. But why wait to share this wonderful winter delight. Please add comments below; while I continue to edit this post.