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Awesome Microscopic

Making Microscopic Flipbook Animations

Making Microscopic Flipbook Animations

Andymation is known for his creative flipbook animations. He once created a flipbook smaller than a penny, but that wasn’t good enough for Andy, so he made an even smaller one. It took some work to get the camera and lens setup right; then, he got to work drawing each tiny frame with a sharp pencil. After that came the challenge of stacking them.

The Mites in Your Cheese

The Mites in Your Cheese

Cheese can get its flavor from flavor from things like bacteria or mold. But if you enjoy the lemony flavor of French Mimolette or German Milbenkäse cheese, you’ve enjoyed a little bonus protein in the form of cheese mites. Journey to the Microcosmos explains how these tiny organisms add flavor to these cheeses.

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Can Life Appear Out of Nowhere?

Can Life Appear Out of Nowhere?

Journey to the Microcosmos explores whether it is possible for microorganisms to spontaneously generate out of thin air. With the help of a powerful microscope and modern scientific knowledge, host Hank Green explains what’s really going on when microscopic organisms seem to show up where there was no life before.

Engineering the World’s Smallest NERF Gun

Engineering the World’s Smallest NERF Gun

Mark Rober and his pals made one of the largest NERF guns ever. This time, he went in the opposite direction, putting the popular toy through the shrink ray so many times it’s only visible with an atomic force microscope. After using a compliant mechanism to engineer a simplified version that can fire a dart, he worked with scientists to make NERF guns from DNA.

Comparing Microscopic Things on a Human Scale

Comparing Microscopic Things on a Human Scale

When you think about something being microscopic, it all seems the same size from our perspective. But this video from RED SIDE cleverly demonstrates the vast differences in the size of things we can’t see with the naked eye, from the tiniest atom to the relatively gargantuan amoeba. Also, there are way too many viruses.

Growing Crystals Macro Time-Lapse

Growing Crystals Macro Time-Lapse

Anyone can grow their own crystals with just a few household chemicals. Photographer Jens Heidler connected a Sony mirrorless camera to a Motic Panthera microscope and recorded a number of fascinating time-lapse sequences showing how crystals grow. He grew the colorful crystals using a combination of beta-alanine, vitamin C, water, and isopropyl alcohol.

The Tiny Creatures That Live in Puddles

The Tiny Creatures That Live in Puddles

After a series of heavy downpours this week, our neighborhood has lots of puddles. In a couple of days, these stagnant pools of water will be teeming with minuscule creatures. Journey to the Microcosm gets us up close and personal with some of these tiny organisms through the optics of high-power microscopes.

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The Amazing Microscopic World

The Amazing Microscopic World

Go deep inside of numerous microscopic worlds with this fascinating video from Sci-Inspi. It compiles through-the-lens footage of tiny living things from a paramecium to a fruit fly’s eye to a tardigrade, accompanied by a soothing guitar soundtrack. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to check out part two.

Honey Under a Microscope

Honey Under a Microscope

After sharing close-up footage of Vitamin C crystals, photographer Jens Heidler of , Another Perspective has done the same with honey. This video shows what the sugar crystals in honey look when viewed through a microscope and illuminated with polarized light. How the crystals dissolve in hot water is fascinating.

Vitamin C Under a Microscope

Vitamin C Under a Microscope

Ordinary things can look extraordinary viewed through the lens of a microscope. Photographer Jens Braun shows the kind of eye-catching crystalline structures can form with just a bit of Vitamin C, water, and alcohol. He shot the images using a Sony a6300 mirrorless camera and used polarization to enhance the vibrant colors.

Chemical Somnia

Chemical Somnia

Filmmaker Scott Portingale and composer Gorkem Sen created this engrossing short film using macro and time-lapse photography to explore how fluids move, and chemicals react and change states. Each of its vignettes feels like a journey to a strange new world. Gorkem’s yaybahar perfectly complements the footage.

Making the World’s Smallest Sculptures

Making the World’s Smallest Sculptures

Dr. Willard Wigan MBE has an attention to detail most of us only dream of. He’s known for his infinitesimally small sculptures, which he carves using tiny tools under the lens of a microscope. WIRED’s Obsessed sat down with Willard to learn about his technique and the challenges of working at such a small scale.

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Wrought: A Decomposition Time-Lapse Film

Wrought: A Decomposition Time-Lapse Film

(Flashing lights) This fascinating short film from Joel Penner and Anna Sigrithur uses time-lapse footage to reveal how tiny organisms spoil food, others that make it tastier through fermentation, and yet more that compost and break down dead things to fertilize the Earth for new life.

True Facts About Dictyostelium Amoeba

True Facts About Dictyostelium Amoeba

Nature show host ZeFrank offers up a detailed look at a kind of amoeba known as Dictyostelium and explores how they work. These strange microscopic organisms gobble up bacteria and other tiny things, then divide over and over to reproduce. But the weirdest part is what they do once the colony runs out of food.

Exploding Microbes

Exploding Microbes

There’s a good reason that we use ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and other microbes. Journey to the Microcosmos provides a fascinating look at what happens to microbes when exposed to a bright UV light source, including their tendency to explode and disintegrate.

Up Close with Micrometeorites

Up Close with Micrometeorites

The word “meteorite” conjures images of rocks falling from the heavens, but each day our planet is pelted with tons of micrometeorites, mostly smaller than grains of sand. Project Stardust founder Jon Larsen gets us up close and personal with 41 of these tiny, otherworldly objects thanks to a scanning electron microscope.

A Microscopic Tour of Death

A Microscopic Tour of Death

In this compilation video from Journey to the Microcosmos, they point their microscope’s powerful lens at tiny organisms to see what happens to them as they reach the end of the line. It’s a fascinating and sobering look at this universal truth for all living organisms. (Thanks, Rob!)

Dance of the Vinegar Eel

Dance of the Vinegar Eel

Live Science and physicist Anton Peshkov take us inside the microscopic world of the turbatrix aceti, otherwise known as the vinegar eel. These tiny nematodes thrive on the kind of microbes that transform juice into vinegar and wriggle around like tiny bolts of lightning as they cluster in a single droplet of water.

Halo: A Microscopic Short Film

Halo: A Microscopic Short Film

Sandro Bocci of JuliaSetLab and Dugong Films creates art by photographing the interactions between liquids, as see through the lens of a microscope. Watch as these puddles of fluids of varying viscosities form patterns that look like the clouds and planets of a distant galaxy.

Planktonium

Planktonium

Filmmaker Jan van IJken offeers a look at the microscopic world of plankton. These fascinating organisms can be found everywhere you find water and are a critical part of our ecosystem. Some provide food for marine life, while others produce oxygen through photosynthesis. Stream the full 15-minute version here.

The Fantastic Feet of the Microcosmos

The Fantastic Feet of the Microcosmos

Unless you’re a snake or a fish, there’s a pretty good chance you have legs and feet. Journey to the Microcosmos gets up close and personal with microorganisms to look at how they get around using their tiny feet and other moving appendages.

The Dark History of Sea Monkeys

The Dark History of Sea Monkeys

Touted by toymakers as instantly-hatching beings running a tiny civilization, Sea Monkeys are just brine shrimp. Hank Green and Journey to the Microcosmos offer their close-up take on the weird history of these novelty sea creatures. Interested in learning more? We recommend the Stuff You Should Know episode on the topic.

Life in a Different Light

Life in a Different Light

Martin Kristiansen of My Microscopic World used a polarized light source, a lab microscope, and an iPhone to capture these incredibly detailed, colorful, and otherworldly images of insect larvae, isopods, and tiny crustaceans. Check out more amazing close-up images on his Instagram feed.

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