Back to School Tips

It's once again that time of year for students. A time of new classes, new teachers and an entire year of learning and discovery for students as a new school year is in their horizon. Below are some helpful tips for keeping your student organized and focused all school year long. 

Use binders for organizing projects or subjects. Create a science binder that you will fill up all year long with images and projects.

Create a science storage area where the kids can access supplies when needed, but also know how to put scientific instruments away to protect them. If you have a microscope, store it in a case, or keep the microscope dust cover on it when not in use. 

Shop Carrying Cases: http://bit.ly/VFEOjM

Create hands-on experimental learning experiences at home. Make an effort to take children on after school educational outings and talk to them about their learning experiences. Reinforcing what they have learned in school is an excellent way to sharpen their skills in science. 

Shop Student Biological Microscopes: http://bit.ly/15eWdjY

For beginning science students we recommend the:

40X-1600X Digital Monocular Compound Microscope with 1.3MP Camera

On sale for $259.99 USD

Shop: http://bit.ly/YNBlAA

Immersion Oil 101

Immersion oil is used with high power objectives such as light microscopes.

Light microscopes have an upper limit to their resolving power of marginally over 1,000 x. At this level of magnification, the microscope needs to direct every available amount of light in order to achieve a clear image. The immersion oil helps to reduce the refraction since it has a refractive index equal to glass. As a result, it forms a continuum between the objective lens and the slide, thereby successfully ensuring that more light is directed towards the specimen and ultimately, a clearer image.

Shop Immersion Oil: http://bit.ly/14WDn5l

Immersion oils are commonly available in two viscosities; low viscosity (A), and high viscosity ( B). The low viscosity oil is applied to the airspace between slide and objective, the high viscosity oil is applied between the condenser and the slide. 

How to Use it: 

Type A: Locate a specimen on the slide and center it in the image field. Rotate the nosepiece until the 100x objective lens is just to one side of the slide. Place a single drop of immersion oil on the slide cover slip and place a drop directly on the objective lens. Combined, both drops ensure no air is trapped in between. Rotate the 100x objective into place and adjust the fine focus to fully resolve the image. 

Cleanup:

It is very important to carefully clean the oil off your objective lens before it dries. Carefully wipe oil from all glass surfaces with a folded piece of clean lens paper. Moisten a piece of lens cleaning paper with lens cleaning fluid and wipe away any residual streaks of oil.

Polarizing Microscopes

Several types of microscopes are at hand for study of biological materials. Their classification is based on the types of light source used and consists of two main categories; optical microscopes utilizing visible light and microscopes that utilize sources other than visible light. 

Polarizing Microscope: Many natural objects including crystals & fibers exhibit special optical property known as double refraction or birefringence. Birefringence is caused by asymmetric particles, too small to be resolved even by best possible lenses. The polarizing microscope is a conventional microscope in which a nickel prism or Polaroid sheet is interposed in the light path below the condenser. This polarizer converts all the light passing through the instrument into plain polarized light. A similar second prism know as the analyzer is placed within the barrel of the microscope above the objective lens. When the analyzer is rotated until its axis is perpendicular to that of polarizer, no light can pass through the ocular lens, resulting in a dark field effect. The field will remain black if an isotropic or singly refractive object is placed on the stage. A birefringent object, however, will appear bright upon a dark background when examined in this manner.

Shop Polarizing Microscopes: http://bit.ly/Xy5y2N

We recommend the 40x-1000x Trinocular Infinity Polarizing Microscope with 9.0 MP Camera

Shop: http://bit.ly/19tAQRO

Objective Lens Comparison

Objective Lenses: 
Achromatic vs Semi-Plan vs Plan 

Besides some special microscope objective lenses, there are three kinds of objective lenses on the market.
Achromatic, semi-plan, and plan. 

Achromatic Lens:

Semi-Plan Lens:

Plan Lens: 

 

First of all, all these three objective lenses correct for color, although there's no "achromatic" in the name of "semi-plan" or "plan". The difference between these three lenses is the focusing area which can be seen from the eyepieces when using high power objective lenses such as 40x, 60x and 100x. 

The difference from low power lenses are not obvious, which means that can be ignored. At high power, an achromatic lens has about 65% of focused area acrossing the center. A semi-plan one has about 85% whereas the plan one has 95%. 

 Due to the correction from the different lenses, the price for those lenses are also different. Here are some links for the objective lenses: 

Achromatic: http://www.microscopenet.com/achromatic-objective-lenses-compound-microscopes-p-377.html 
Semi-Plan: http://www.microscopenet.com/semi-plan-achromatic-objective-compound-microscopes-p-317.html
Plan: http://www.microscopenet.com/plan-achromatic-objective-compound-microscopes-p-316.html

Live Blood Analysis: Leukocytosis

We were testing out some blood specimens yesterday we used a methylene blue I was testing some mountants for peripheral blood smears.
Stain used: methylene blue, polychromed by boiling with Na2CO3 for about 30 minutes. The smear was heat-fixed, brought to alcohol and then xylene, and finally covered with mounting medium and a cover slip. Thick smear leukocytes

 The CMOS eyepiece camera is a great way to get micro-critters onto a video screen, but it doesn’t show quite as much detail as the human eye can see looking through the eyepiece. However, you can see from the photo that there appears to be a mix of immune-response cells.

 On another note, you will notice there are no erythrocytes visible. The polychromed methylene blue is normally treated with eosin to give a Romanowsky stain; this reveals both red and white cells. The white cells’ cytoplasm collapsed or degraded severely in both test specimens after about a week, except in those areas where it was apparently stabilized  in the thicker regions of the smear.

The History of the Microscope

During that historic period known as the Renaissance came the invention of the light microscope. A revolutionizing instrument that enabled the human eye to observe microscopic objects. It enabled people to understand the fascinating details of the known world.

In 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers discovered that nearby objects appeared greatly enlarged. That was the forerunner of the compound microscope and of the telescope. In 1609, Galileo, father of modern physics and astronomy, heard of these early experiments, worked out the principles of lenses, and made a much better instrument with a focusing device.

The father of microscopy, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, started as an apprentice in a dry goods store where magnifying glasses were used to count the threads in cloth. He taught himself new methods for grinding and polishing tiny lenses of great curvature which gave magnifications up to 270 diameters, the finest known at that time. He was the first to see and describe bacteria, yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries. He studied both living and non living, and reported his findings in over a hundred letters to the Royal Society of England and the French Academy.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek Microscope

(Via birthstory.com)

Robert Hooke is considered the English father of microscopy because he confirmed Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discoveries of the existence of tiny living organisms in a drop of water. Hooke made a copy of Leeuwenhoek's light microscope and then improved upon his design.

Robert Hooke Microscope 

(Via http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/museum/hooke.html)

A Microscope Master Review

Review: 

OMAX 40X-2000X Digital Binocular Biological Compound Microscope with Built-in 3.0MP USB Camera and Double Layer Mechanical Stage

"The construction and all round capabilities of this microscope surpass what you would normally expect for this price. 

 This Omax microscope offers affordability, convenience and durability. Images obtained are bright and clear, controls are firm and the stage and slide holder are easy to work with. 

 Equipped with a 3.0M pixel built-in USB camera, you will enjoy not only photo capability but video as well which is especially beneficial where participation in a group setting is necessary. 

 Pictures can be brightened, cropped and saved easily. 

 It is compatible with MS Windows 2000/XP/Vista as well as Windows 7 -32bit and 64bit. 

 Worth noting is Omax's excellent customer service and informative technical support."

Shop Model: M827S-C30