Brain Surgery

[Ken Ramos]

I introduced every one to The Brain over in Macro. Now allow me to do a little "brain" surgery.



This is a "squash" prep made from The Brain. I brought The Brain home today and rehydrated it in a small bowl of distilled water. Within the circle I do believe we have some spores.



In this image taken through a Zeiss 40X/0.65 CP Achromat, we have quite a number of the spores. Note their pecular shape and what appears to be bright nuclei at or towards the poles. Could they be multinucelate? Probably so from what I have been reading, if indeed those are the nuclei. We might also be witnessing "reduction division," where the nuclei maybe reverting back from diploid (2n) to haploid (1n).



Ahh....for the want of a field ion microscope or an SEM , here we see the assumed spores and nuclei using a 100X oil immersion objective, Zeiss 100X/1.25 CP Achromat. More than likely these are haploid (1n) nuclei also.

There were quite a few interesting things in The Brain, some I noted as what could possibly be calcium oxylate crystals, also found on the surface of most lichens. If one looks closely to the right of the first image, one or two of those crystals may be seen.

[crocoite]

There were quite a few interesting things in The Brain, some I noted as what could possibly be calcium oxylate crystals, also found on the surface of most lichens.

Ah...that would be whewellite in the mineral kingdom Ken (although just having checked to make sure, its spelled oxalate).

[Ken Ramos]

Steve said:

its spelled oxalate

Thanks Steve Should have looked that up but I was in a rush at the time of the post. However, I did wonder at the spelling

[Bruce Williams]

Interesting results Ken - and isn't it appropriate that Jelly Fungus spores are bean shaped

Bruce

[beetleman]

heheheheheheehe lol ( I like that....Jelly beans) Some nice shots Ken and thank you for the information.

[Ken Ramos]

Bruce said:

Interesting results Ken - and isn't it appropriate that Jelly Fungus spores are bean shaped

Ah...there's one in every crowd But you are right Bruce and quite observant too!