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how do we know this isn’t just a closeup of a tardigrade butthole?
They’re well studied.
https://www.livescience.com/62602-tardigrade-poop-video.html
This deserves its own post.
Also doesn’t deserve Twitter, now known as a letter owned by a Gestapo enthusiast.
I bet that feels amazing.
Here’s a photo of the tardigrade in action:
That was a huge log
There was missing something…
Hard to believe. To prepare a sample for an electron microscope you need to freeze it to nitrogen temperatures or below. You can fix it using glutaraldehyde, but again, you need to cut it accurately immediately after the penetration. My bet is that either stabbed dead skin or some sort of graphics.
Also seems wildly overkill to use an electron microscope for this.
That’s an elephant in the room here
Yes! When I did electron microscopy, we had to cover the fix the samples and cover them with a very thin gold layer beforehand.
Yeah, and it’s impossible to catch color!
Thanks, I hate it. Not because of the hole, but because of how unhealthy the skin looks in this picture.
Were you expecting it to be smooth like plastic? The top layer is basically a bunch of dead skin cells that keep flaking away from the top layer and building up again from the lower layers.
I am aware, but it still looks very unsettling. The fake colour actually makes it worse I think, because I have seen plenty similar pictures in gray scale
Mmm, skin flakes.
Pik pik pik
I knit, tiny? makes me want to use a bandaid after I inject black yat heroim these days
In rationalist hell there is a special teapot for people who color SEM images
Most SEMs use a vacuum chamber to get their photos. Also, it’s not uncommon to sputter a conductive coating onto the surface you’re scanning.
How the hell did they get this photo?
Environmental SEMs do not require vacuum and can be used for nonconductive samples. The beam ionizes the air which prevents the sample from charging. Magnification is limited but it is more than enough for this.
You can tell it is SEM and not optical by the depth of field. An optical image at this magnification would have much less DoF so the peaks/valleys would be blurry.
That’s very cool. I had not heard of ESEMs till you commented. I’ll have to look into them more.
I’m more intrigued by the fact there’s no blood, they must’ve taken this milliseconds after the needle was removed? Or it’s a dead body.
Probably just a chunk of skin, not a whole person
They could have remained a portion of the skin.
But as another commenter notes, this is too large to need an electron microscope.Edit: then another comment says otherwise, and cites the collection it is from.
no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
Yes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
That old familiar sting.
The pores on my face as seen by the naked eye.
Just about everything can seem big when you have an electron microscope
I should also call your mom.
Skin kinda looks like dried up paint (I don’t paint). Is this dryer than normal, or?
Apparently electron microscopes work in a vacuum. So this is a needle hole in skin, in a vacuum.
Looks like the hole they dragged the Brain Bug out of.
…hmmmmmm…
