Cyanobacteria are so fucking old and scary and pretty and cute and I love them.

I got the travel grant! Got about a month to get the rest of my housing, food, etc etc covered (Ko-fi in bio if you feel like it).

And my poster. Oh god.

“Microbes don't have this sort of complex visual processing, but many still need to know where the light around them--whether that's to seek out food or avoid hidden dangers. They may not see things the way we do, but the mechanisms they have in place allow them to respond to light in extraordinary ways to meed the most ordinary of needs.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Can Microbes See Without Eyes?

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

Journey to the Microcosmos- Lacrymaria: Vicious Long-Necked Predators

Images Originally captured by Jam’s Germs

“Perhaps the most primitive of these methods are light-sensitive pigments called phytochromes. But when we say "primitive", we don't mean to diminish their importance or their complexity. If ecosystems are built on photosynthesis, then phytochromes are essential to life as it currently exists. Scientists first discovered phytochromes in plants, where they helped answer longstanding questions about how plants respond to seasonal changes in light. But the ancestors of those plant pigments are found in cyanobacteria like oscillatoria, whose phytochromes help regulate growth, movement, and photosynthesis.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Can Microbes See Without Eyes?

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

“Ah, food, one of life’s great pleasures. Whether you’re an organism whose body can create its own food, or you make do with the consumption of other organisms, food sustains and connects life both large and small.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- How Do Microorganisms Poop Without a Butthole?

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

“As we observe the world around us, what we see is shaped by the way our eyes process the light that's bouncing and absorbing and passing through our surroundings. For many of us, what this means is that when we look at this clip of cyanobacteria, we see green strips sliding along a blue background. For others, depending on their eyes and other corrective measures, the colors may be different, of the edges blurred, or the images may not exist at all. The final product will come down to the physical and chemical reactions that are taking place in our eyes in response to light, and how that informs the biological processing that comes next.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- Can Microbes See Without Eyes?

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs

“DIC on the other hand, doesn’t make areas that are denser darker, it used some very cool optics to create sharp contrast in areas of rapid change in the optical path length. So, the faster the gradient from more to less dense or vice versa, the more contrast you see.” 

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Upgraded Our Microscope!

“But, very basically, phase contrast and DIC are two ways to take advantage of a strange reality. Light actually travels further through some materials than others. Kinda.”

Journey to the Microcosmos- We Upgraded Our Microscope!

Images Originally Captured by Jam’s Germs