Thursday, October 19, 2017

Tiny is not so tiny

Perception has an impact in so many ways. At times, we can easily say that our five senses have a way of deceiving us. We can not rely on them completely. Now you might ask, "what led her to think in such a way"? Besides being bombarded by such ideas in philosophy class, the microplastics we thought were so micro are, in fact, enormous...depending upon what you are viewing them under. 
Take this fellow, for instance (image below). It is so minute that its weight is almost negligible. 
However, when looked under an electron microscope...

The image is extraordinarily precise, I can not wait till I observe the bacteria growing on these plastics. The process wasn't difficult either. We asked Dr, Abeer to assist us with it, and she quickly proceeded to coat it with gold to minimize scattering as observed in the image below. As a conclusion, it's safe to say that this week was a wonderful experience.
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4 comments:

  1. Brenda ArvizuOctober 19, 2017 at 4:11 PM

    Wow Naya, I never thought about it from that perspective! Each time I’m dealing with clear solutions, I begin to think that they’re all the same, only with different names. Of course, if I were to view them under a microscope, there’d be huge differences. It’s amazing how you were able to obtain such a clear picture. I especially love all the colors! I wonder what they mean? Nevertheless, great job this week :)

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  2. Ibrahim IbrahimOctober 19, 2017 at 6:51 PM

    Wow! Dr. Abeer did a great job by dying the plastic gold. It was a great experience seeing the electron microscope. For some reason, I assumed it would be the size of one classroom, but it was not that big. Hopefully, throughout the coming weeks, we will have hands-on experience on the STM.

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  3. Sammie October 20, 2017 at 2:23 AM

    Hi Naya!
    I really like how you provided two images to express the size of the material which you viewed under the Electron Microscope. My question is, can you view anything and everything under the Electron Microscope?

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  4. JasmineDecember 14, 2017 at 10:30 AM

    Its so cool how we both have Philosophy class together like I would just love to have an long long conversation with you about all the new topics that we learn in class, anyways I really love the title especially since that is so true and I never really thought of it that way. when I think of bacteria I just think of the Unknowns that we are given I never really think of how big bacteria is unless its really looked at through a microscope. Anyways Loved the title

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