Some interesting microscope images of food items appeared on-line this month. A close-up of a strawberry is shown below. ~James

(C) Science Photo Library / Barcroft

The images have now been processed and will appear anonymously (in a coded format so that only the persons who donated them can identify the images) on this website after the Portsmouth visit on 10th April. ~James

The AFM imaging of the TAG hairs is now complete. Hairs from 15 persons (1 per person) have been imaged, with 4 images taken per sample: 2 images close to the root end and 2 images close to the tip end. These images will be shared with the group in an anonymous way so that only the 'owner' (and myself) will know which image belongs to which person (by swapping initials with code numbers, 1-15). The images will then be presented and discussed during the visit, hard copies given to the artists and electronic copies displayed anonymously on this website. ~James

AFM images being acquired from the final hair sample

Further to my last post, the image analysis software I usually use to process AFM images could be used to generate the flythough movies. The software allows each frame of the movie to be controlled, in terms of orientation, magnification and lighting. It might take some time to produce a 1 minute movie though... By the way, liposomes, used in the example image below and taken from my lab, are a bit like sturdy soap bubbles that are being used by scientists to deliver drugs to target regions in the body. ~James

Saw this picture on facebook and it reminded me of some 'flythrough' movies of AFM images that University of Bristol did in the mid-1990s. This type of thing is possible since AFM images contain 3D info: length, width and height. Maybe there's some free software 'out there' for doing this now... will investigate. ~James

Mountain Lake, Glendalough, Ireland

Coach booked for April 10th for visit to University of Portsmouth. ~James

Ilaria Vanzulli, a PhD student in the School of Pharmacy of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, produced this comparative image from some of her cell samples. I saw the image on facebook and she agreed that I could share it here. It seemed quite fitting. ~James

(C) Ilaria Vanzulli and Michelangelo

AFM scanning of the art group's hair samples started. ~James

This week we are looking at Renoir and his paintings of ladies (and men) with hair. I will also be encouraging the group to use lines from poetry, songs, literature to inspire them to make a painting or drawing. ~Sandie

The hair samples taken from the art group have arrived at the lab ready for AFM scanning. Quite a range here.  The plan is to image these before the visit, leaving some demonstration scans to do on the day. The images will be given to the group and discussed during the visit. ~James