BIOLOGY 207 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Prochlorococcus, Scanning Electron Microscope, Microscopy
Document Summary
Since leeuwenhoek, powerful microscopes have been devised to search for microbes in unexpected places. Using a microscope and imaging the plaque of teeth from old men who didn"t brush their (drawings showing) now we can use scanning electron microscope. Microscopy has revealed: we are just as microbial as we are human, we live in a microbial world, bacteria are beautiful! The size at which objects become visible depends on the resolution of our eyes (~0. 1 mm) Resolution: the smallest distance by which two objects can be separated and still be distinguished. Our eyes observe an object by focusing the image on a retina, packed with these light absorbing photoreceptors. So our photoreceptors in our retinas are packed that allow for a resolution of 0. 1 mm (eagles are packed 10x more, can see 10x better) Detection: ability to determine the presence of an object.
