A Modern Bio Microscope

Coming up with innovative titles and headings is often an interesting challenge when we present at multiple different conferences and meetings throughout the year. While discussing recent titles for talks, Iain Anderson and I looked at song lyrics for inspiration. Iain subsequently developed a verse describing biological SEM to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Modern Major General song from the Pirates of Penzance. The rest developed from there and we thought it would be fun to share the result with you.

Sing Along:

Modern microscopes benefit from advances in technology,
There’s so much more that you can do than measuring morphology,
From 3D work to multi-colour SEM and correlative microscopy,
When doing SEM analysis of samples from biology.

Experiment’s all start with specimen preparation,
And every single step I find there’s so much variation,
To stain, to dry, and how to do the process of fixation,
But freezing is a simple way to keep sample hydration.

A trick you see me sometimes do when imaging an organelle,
Some tissue sample from a rat or really any kind of cell,
For better resolution, and I’m talking ultrastructurally,
Is moderate the beam current and working with a low kV.

With EM we know the textbook’s say that images are always grey,
But now I’m using EDS it’s clear there is another way,
The colour serves to show all the elements endogenous,
And stains come up a different hue so navigation is no fuss.

Insights in SEM analysis of samples biological,
They charge and drift and misbehave so beam conditions critical,
The NanoSuit ™ is simple, elsewise sample prep is tedious,
And if you want more data out then why not try some EDS?

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