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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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!)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Water is critical to the survival of almost all living things. This fascinating time-lapse short film by Christian Stangl provides a close-up look at what happens to organics as they run out of moisture. Stangl captured the images using a combination of macro lenses and microscopes. View a selection of stills on Flickr.
If that title doesn’t get your attention, we don’t know what will. In this video from Journey to the Microcosmos, they get up close and personal with a flowing river of human blood cells. It’s amazing to see how the individual cells dancing about and to learn about the characteristics of blood that keep us alive.
Filmmaker Jan van Ijken captured this amazing microscopic scale time-lapse footage of the development of an amphibious alpine newt. Watch in awe as it grows from a single cell to a complete organism in just 6 minutes. More here.
Volvox (aka “globe algae”) are a genus of bright green algae that like to hang out in freshwater. Now spend a minute living in their world, courtesy of Shigeru Gougi, who shared this amazing footage of the spherical green lifeforms dancing about under the lens of a microscope.
From a multi-blade razor to a peanut M&M, Macro Universe takes us really, really up-close and personal with a handful of everyday objects. It always amazes us to see the tiny imperfections and textures in objects which look so smooth and perfect when viewed normally.
At first glance, you might think you’re looking at imagery of some distant part of the cosmos. In fact, everything you see in this short film was captured in a single shot on a 0.3 square inch area of a chemical reaction. These microscopic visuals were captured to spectacular effect by filmmaker Roman Hill.
