Scanning Electron Microscopy

So...I finally finished summer school a couple of weeks ago. I took Organic Chemistry + Lab and it was amazing! Anyways, I am finally getting around to posting some of the work I do with my research team at Appalachian State. These following images are pretty much the first images I came up with when I was learning how to operate the equipment last fall. These are all images of a common house fly, Musca dominica.

This image shows the multiple hexagonal "ommatidia" that make up Musca dominica's compact eye. What is visible is the actual cornea of the ommatidia. Scanned at nearly 3000x magnification.

This image is showing the area between the head of the fly and it's thorax. Quadrant 2 shows the proboscis of the head.

My Time at Appalachian

I have not done a lot of photography since I left RCC, but I have definitely kept busy. I am apart of research cluster in the microscopy facility here at Appalachian, and below are some samples of images that I have taken with the different equipment up here:

This is an image of BPAE (Bovine Pulmonary Artery Epithelial) taken on a confocal microscope. The confocal microscope uses lasers from different wavelengths to excite particular dyes. These dyes can be "injected" into certain anatomy, and after exciting them with a specific wavelength of light, they become "excited" and visible. Here,the BPAE cells were labeled with MitoTracker® Red and BODIPY® FL phallacidin to show mitochondria and actin filaments.

The Following images are from a compound microscope. These were used in a research presentation for my microscopy cluster at the SNCURCS (State of North Carolina Undergraduate Research and Creativity Symposium)in November of last year. The final poster presentation is shown as the last image.

Clinorchis Sinensis (Human Blood Fluke)
Anterior sucker and oral cavity

Trypanosoma Gambiense (40x magnification)
This little parasite causes African Sleeping Sickness and is contracted from the bite of the Tsetse Fly

Oral Smear (40x)

These are cheek epithelial cells covered in bacteria, with a visible bacteria strain