Small Things Considered

The Ten Minute Leeuwenhoek Microscope

by Patrick Keeling

Patrick melts a glass tube (while looking away!) to make
a Leeuwenhoek microscope at the UBC Advanced
Molecular Biology Labs High School Science Teacher
Conference (October, 2008). Source.

I was on leave from teaching for a couple of years. The summer before re-starting my third year Protistology course I began to think about some things I wanted to change. One thing I wanted to do was to add a section on the history of microbiology to put things into perspective and hopefully connect students with the material a bit. My colleague, Max Taylor, had a replica of a van Leeuwenhoek microscope that he once showed to me, and I thought it would be fun to make one as close to the original design as possible to show the class what it was like. I did some superficial snooping around about how it was built, including finding the original paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society where he described the design. I realized it would be pretty straightforward, including making a lens that was pretty close to the ones he would have used.

Deep down I knew that this was mostly to find some excuse to buy an anvil because, seriously, what kind of guy does NOT want to have his own anvil? So, one anvil, a big hammer, and a bit of brass later, I had made all the components for two Leeuwenhoek microscopes. I later found a superbly detailed web page describing how to do it that would have saved a lot of trial and error (especially my mistake in threading both holes in the L-shaped piece that connects to the microscope plate to the stage), a source that I would recommend to anyone who wants to make one of these.

ASMCUE 2009

by Elio

ASM sponsors a Conference for Undergraduate Educators (AMSCUE) that is attended by over 300 people every year. Having been there several times, I can attest to the quality and usefulness of this meeting. This four day conference is designed to serve one of the pillars of the microbiological community, those who teach our science to large numbers of undergrads. Given the excitement of the microbial world, one would expect that the material would teach itself. This is true, but sharing experiences and techniques, not to mention travails and joys, has proven invaluable for those in attendance. It is an enriching experience for those teaching at large and small institutions alike.

The Blog in the Classroom

by Elio

Students in Integrative Microbiology, a graduate course taught jointly by the University of California at San Diego and the San Diego State University, could fulfill an assignment by optionally answering either one of two specified Talmudic Questions. Their answers are now posted as comments under each of the posts. They make good reading.

Talmudic Question #30. Many bacteria, e.g., E. coli and B. subtilis, regulate their gene expression via a large number of distinct devices that operate on almost all conceivable biochemical levels. Why so many?

Talmudic Question # 6.With the buzz created by the discovery of giant viruses, e.g., Mimivirus, the distinction between viruses and cells is said to get blurred. I maintain that this is not the case because the single most important distinction is that viruses lose their corporeal integrity, cells do not. What do you think? Are you a blurrer or a non-blurrer?

The Age of Imaging

Image courtesy of BibliOdyssey

Not so long ago, it would have seemed implausible that biology would return to its origins as a visual science. Some would have considered this a regression to the days when biologists were pretty much confined to studying just what they could see, such as the shapes of organisms and their tissues. Back then, they focused on refining what Pliny had observed with his bare eyes, what Hooke and Leeuwenhoek saw under the microscope. The methodological lines of attack were dramatically redirected from the visual by the revolutionary discoveries of the second half of the last century. Biochemistry, genetics, molecular biology—none of them relied primarily on visualizing the structure of objects. For some time, doing morphology was suspect and, in some quarters, even using a microscope was equated with doing old-fashioned science.

How biology has (once again) changed!

Calling All Teachers

As the school year begins, we would like to hear from you about uses that you may have for this blog in your classroom. We think that the material here lends itself particularly well to use as supplemental readings─providing intellectual enrichment to students who desire it. The blog has been mentioned in class syllabi, usually under "Further reading" or "Interesting material" or some such heading. And indeed, this accurately depicts one of its uses.

But we would like to encourage you to consider various other uses, as well. We know of several more active ways in which the blog has been utilized already.