Electron Microscope

Toshio Sasaki, who works in the Biology Resources Section at OIST, used a Focused Ion Beam/Scanning Electron Microscope to carve a series of OIST logos onto a grain of sugar and then image them. The top image shows the carved sugar grain near other sugar grains for scale. The bottom image shows a close up of the logos. The largest logo is 200 micrometers wide, and the smallest is 12.5 micrometers wide.

Toshio Sasaki removes the sample from the FIB/SEM machine and replaces it with a cartridge used to recalibrate the microscope. The cartridge contains different materials, which will each refract an electron in a particular direction and at a particular speed. The FIB/SEM measures these electrons and adjusts its detection system accordingly.

Spear-shaped viruses attack a spherical microbe. The microbe is a dead ARMAN, and the viruses represent at least two different types of virus. This image is a slice from a 3D cryo-ET reconstruction of an acid mine drainage biofilm region produced by Dr. Luis R. Comolli, guest editor of Frontiers in Microbiology.

This figure shows the differences between a wild type zebrafish, labeled wt, and the SLBP mutant used in this experiment, labeled rw440. Moving from left to right, the images show the embryo at 3, 4, and 5 days post fertilization, or dpf. In the top row, the wild type fish retina forms different types of retinal cells, which assemble into neat layers.  The wild type fish’s retinal ganglion cells form a clear channel leaving the eye for their axons to carry messages to the brain. On the bottom row, the mutant fish retina shows fewer types of cells, with delayed layering and no clear way for signals to reach the brain.

Figure 2. Effect of serotonin activation on waiting for delayed reward The mouse easily could wait for 3 and 6 seconds to receive delayed food. When the duration was 9 seconds, the failure in waiting significantly increased. When serotonin neurons were activated with light stimulation during the 9-second delay, the number of reward wait failures significantly decreased.