Awesome Microscopic

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.

This new channel is a collaboration by SciShow host Hank Green, musician Andrew Huang, and microorganism enthusiast James Weiss. It delves deep into the world of the trillions of microscopic organisms that surround us. We recommend starting off with Meet the Microcosmos for a primer to this fascinating universe.

Filmmaker Maria Constanza Ferreira explores the incredibly ethereal and colorful organic patterns that reveal themselves when viewing the microscopic structures of sugar crystals under polarized light.

To show off their nanofabrication process, scientists at Western University used elecrton beam lithography to create this microscopic silica and platinum snowman that measures less than 3 microns tall. For comparison’s sake, a human hair is about 100 microns thick.