"Bringing this level of magnification gives us a new layer of the microcosmos to explore. It's like we've descended into a new level of a cave, getting further from our world--though fortunately for the easily scared among us, the cave is metaphorical and the risks are negligible. All we need for the journey are some objective lenses and tiny drop of...oil? Yeah, oil."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"But you should never trust an optics lesson that seems simple. How could it be when the image we're seeing is the product of so many things at once, some tangible like a lens, other much less so. What is less tangible than light, which is, as we've seen before on this channel--a very strange thing. We cannot touch it, but we can manipulate it, using what we know of the way it travels and bends and reflects to see our world differently. But light... has its limits."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

CC: "Like these two hypotrich ciliates that are trying so hard to rudely interrupt a couple that is already mid-conjugation. They are expending so much effort, though the solution to their predicament seems so obvious: they should just channel that energy into conjugating with each other. Why are they so preoccupied with a couple that's already taken?...For our poor unloved hypotrich ciliates, what's likely happened is that they are the same mating type as each other, drawn to the same location because of the secretions of one of the conjugating pair. Alas, they both showed up too late to the party, and they've remained too chemically preoccupied with the object of their conjugational affections to divert their attention to each other.

Journey to the Microcosmos- Becoming Your Own Baby Through Conjugation

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"The two ciliates will then exchange one of their pronuclei with the other through their connected mouths, and each will fuse their pronucleus with their partner's to create a zygotic nucleus. This new nucleus combines and rearranges the genetic material inherited from both parents, replacing the old macronucleus with this new remixed version."

Journey to the Microcosmos- Becoming Your Own Baby Through Conjugation

"Now we don't usually do math on this channel, but this is one of the rare cases where the math and optics is straightforward. In our microscope, the eyepiece has a magnification of 10x, so if we're looking through a 63x objective, the final magnification is 630x. That is the number you'll see in the corner."

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

"For some protists, like Chlamydomonas, sexual reproduction is a fusion of two gamete cells. It will spend much of its life as an asexual cell, reproducing through binary fission, or just splitting in two. But when the environment gets tough, it will turn into a gamete that belongs in one of two mating types. When a gamete finds its opposite mating type, the two fuse to create a zygote that then divides to create the progeny."

Journey to the Microcosmos- Becoming Your Own Baby Through Conjugation

CC: "This is but one moment in these hypotrich's attempt at conjugation, who knows what the next one will look like. As for the conjugating pair, well, we wish them and their progeny the best. Because when the camera is gone and the day is done, these two organisms may never see each other again, but they're shared this moment and their nuclei, and they've made the microcosmos all the richer for it."

Journey to the Microcosmos- Becoming Your Own Baby Through Conjugation