Question: whats the bets thing you have seen on a microscope?

Majid Ahmed answered on 16 Mar 2016:

Hi Daisy,

One of the best things I see regularly on the powerful microscope are the layer of cells on the inside of the blood vessels. This cell layer is called the endothelium. These cells are able to detect blood rushing past and they direct the blood vessel to open more (dilate) or close (constrict). This function of the blood vessel is very important because it allows the body to control when and how much blood is supplied.

When I look at these cells with our microscope (see picture on my profile), the magnification we use is very high so I am looking very closely at small groups of cells. I then load the cells with a chemical dye, and this dye becomes fluorescent (the cells glow) when it comes into contact with a specific ion that I am interested in (calcium ions). Sometimes I see the fluorescence go up in the entire cell, but other times I see small sparks of fluorescence which stay in a small area within the cell; this is called local signalling because the ion is being used to send a message to another component within the same cell. I think this is pretty cool. It’s like me and my mum living in the same house (the house being the cell) and I send my mum a text message to ask her to bring me a cup of coffee. In my analogy, the text message would be the calcium ion which signals the following action.

Other times, I see cells ‘talking’ to each other or working as a team. It’s amazing stuff and it looks awesome to watch.