Diatoms – living in a glass house

Mar 26, 2015 • 12:28 AM UTC

San Francisco, CA, USA

140x Magnification

Microorganisms

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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Walk around a pond and just take a small cup of water from the edge of the pond. What you just got is lots and lots and lots of glass houses. It’s almost ironic; what you think is nasty pond scum is mostly absolutely beautiful jewels of nature. Ironically, nobody knows what these glass houses do for the diatoms; tiny little guys and gals that live inside the glass house.
I just mounted a few live diatoms in a glass slide and looked through my foldscope (140x). I was very happy with what I saw; specially quiet surprised to find “gliding” diatoms. Yes – you heard it right; gliding diatoms. It’s a puzzle inside a puzzle – isn’t that fascinating.

Go get some pond water and take a look. Who knows what’s waiting for you.
Cheers
Manu