MICSCAPE - Exploring the miniature world

Issue 331: October 2023 (ISSN 1365 - 070x)      Monthly, next issue November 13th 2023.

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Contributions: Any modern format welcomed i.e. pdf. doc/docx with embedded images, or html + jpegs.

Invertebrate weapons part 3: Worm-like organisms and true worms - the very sadly late Richard L. Howey (USA) continues his series on the variety of weapons adopted by different organisms.

Caught in the light, part 1 - Christina Brodie (UK) shares pencil drawing studies and water colour paintings of the insects she has found attracted to a skylight.

Microscope illumination techniques - Anthony Thomas (Canada) compares brightfield, darkfield, DIC and polar for the same whole insect subjects. PDF

Microscopical Exploration 25, a new solvent to try - James Stewart (UK) tries a cheap bulk purchase of a hand sanitiser based on ethanol to assess its suitability for crystalisation studies of chemicals. PDF

A specimen of Thaliaceae - Doliolid - Jean-Marie Cavanihac (France) describes and illustrates this marine organism. PDF

Think Microscopically, Act on a Grand Scale the modern life of Rudolph Virchow, part 2  - Ed Ward (USA) continues his extensive illustrated series on Virchow's life and work.PDF, 44 pages.

Featherwing beetle - Anthony Thomas (Canada) presents images of this beetle's attractive wing structure. PDF

Mushroom season - Christian Autotte (Canada) illustrates on the macro and micro scale the appeal of fungi found around his home. PDF

Micscape Lite - contributors sharing their other interests

The appeal of retro electronics - part 1, 90s Windows 3.11 laptop - David Walker (UK) shares his interest in fixing and using this era of computer hardware.

From the archives, a small selection of the splendid breadth of articles (over 350) that Richard Howey shared over 25 years.

Pseudo-microscopes, a cranky  essay - August 1998, the earliest article.

Lacrymaria olor, a microscopic Loch Ness monster - April 2000

Album of termite symbionts - September 2019

Nineteenth Century British Microscopy and Natural History: Part1 - September 2007

Adventures with ascorbic acid - October 2022


    Richard Howey, RIP. My co-webmaster Mol Smith and I are very saddened to hear of the passing away of Richard on October 8th 2023 in a local hospice, Laramie, Wyoming. Richard has been contributing for 25 years and both Mol and I greatly valued the virtual friendships built up over that time. His splendid legacy of over 350 articles forms part of our site archive but also part of the Internet Archive which regularly mirrors our entire site. We hope to prepare a tribute celebrating this legacy in the next issue. We pass on our sincere condolences to his wife Adrianne, family and friends. Thank you to his close friend Troy Carlyle for passing on this news.

    If any readers would like to publicly share their enjoyment of his contributions or virtual friendships we will compile them for next month's tribute and forward to his family.
    David Walker, Micscape Editor.

     

     

We are delighted to receive contributions small or large from microscopy enthusiasts whether a novice or expert. If you have an image, tip or article, why not share it, this magazine is what you make it!

     

Archive
Look for that elusive article on our site:
 Micscape Magazine past issues online (read articles online using the original illustrated index for each month).
 Article Library (browse articles by category)
 Automated Search (a search engine for keyword searches in all articles)
 Contributor index (a list of all Micscape contributors to date)
News - special notices - misc.


External links. Updated April 2020. Below are some of our favourites, which includes sites with extensive links and/or resources for the optical microscopy enthusiast.

External Microscopy forums: Places to discuss the hobby or to raise queries.
www.photomacrography.net forums, galleries, articles on macroscopy and photomicrography.

groups.io (formerly Yahoo groups):
 Amateur Microscopy
Diatom Forum
Microscopy as a hobby or profession
Wild Microscopes

Facebook groups:
Amateur Microscopy (>21000 members, very active). Also specialist groups e.g. for users of given maker's microscopes (e.g. Zeiss, Olympus, Wild, Vickers). Also try a Facebook Group search with keywords like microscope or microscopy to find these.

Other:
Microbe hunter the website ably run by Oliver Kim has built up a popular and valuable forum with help for both the beginner and more advanced user.

Listservers:
Algae-L 'Forum for marine, freshwater and terrestrial algae'. Access to Archives possible for non-subscribers.
Diatom-L 'Research on the diatom algae.' Access to Archives for subscribers only. Link was current March 2016. Many online diatom resources point to an outdated Indiana Univ. listserver. (With thanks to Rob Kimmich for the current link.)

Mikroskopie-Treff.de (Extensive German microscopy forum; some English categories.)
 Mikrobiologische Vereinigung München e. V. Wide range of articles and resources in German.
Le Naturaliste French based forum and image gallery for micro / macro but open to non French speaking international contributors.

The Amateur Diatomist archive This magazine resource ably created and administered by Steve Gill has now been ported to the Microscopy-UK site with Steve's permission as the former host server is now not available.
As well as all the issues in pdf format there are a wealth of other resources in the Downloads section including by noted workers such as Barber and the complete 532 page book 'An Introduction to the Microscopical Study of Diatoms' by Robert B. McLaughlin.

Diatoms of the Arid South West Originally hosted on the website of New Mexico State University, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Services. Archived with permission from Dave Richman, resource editor, and C. Scott Bundy of the NMSU.

Other sites (also see Societies and Clubs page.)
Royal Microscopy Society Journal, 'infocus' and other resources for members and the community.
Quekett Microscopical Club Journal, Bulletin and meetings for members.
 Light Microscopy Forum links and articles
Little Imp Publications public domain books collated by Steve Gill formerly on CD and now free on Micscape.
Mikroskop Museum German website with resources on microscopes / makers .
Molecular Expressions awesome optical microscopy resources
Dennis Kunkel's SEM images stunning images
Diatoms Ireland - resource site by Leszek Wolnik
Leitz museum an illustrated resource compiled by Robert Allen
Microbe hunter microscopy enthusiast website, forum and magazine edited by Oliver Kim
Microscopies online magazine and Forum for French speakers
Micrographia articles, projects for the enthusiast
Microscopy Today journal with online archive
Modern Microscopy online journal by McCrone Group
Fun Science Gallery projects, articles on optics in English and Italian.
Independent Generation of Research (IGoR) - Wiki style resource for citizen scientists to share their work.
Lens On Leeuwenhoek - extensive resource online by Douglas Anderson
Collected Letters of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek ('Alle de Brieven ..') transcribed and free online at DBNL.
A Cabinet of Curiosities a resource on Victorian microscope slides by Howard Lynk
'Diatoms Ireland' resource by Leszek Wolnik
Historical makers of microscopes and microscope slides Brian Stevenson's extensive resource .
Victorian slide makers
Cambridge rocking microtome resources including manual
www.willemsmicroscope.com Dutch enthusiast Willem Cramer's website
David Jackson's Better Microscopy blog. Regularly updated free resources extending from his 'Better Microscopy' series of books.
Stefano Barone's Diatom Shop sale of his own prepared and arranged slides of diatoms, radiolaria, forams and scales.
www.testslides.com website devoted to Stefano Barone's Diatom Lab test slides.
Darwin Biological a UK company for 'biological education' supplies. Including live cultures of protozoa and algae.
Microscopie van de Natuur Dutch microscopy resource site by Rolf Vossen.
 

Microscopy-UK
 parent site coordinator:
Maurice Smith

Microscopy-UK and Micscape - established 1995
Micscape is a free magazine for enthusiasts funded by Microscopy-UK and dedicated to non-commercial microscopy.
© Onview.net Ltd, Microscopy-UK, and all contributors 1995 onwards. All rights reserved. Main site is at www.microscopy-uk.org.uk