Juniper Pollen : Exine Rupture Video

[Thomas Ashcraft]

video extract : Juniperus communalis pollen : 1000x / brightfield oil

March 16, 2007

Here in New Mexico we are in the midst of Juniperus communalis pollen season and the sky is so thick with it that there is a pollen corona around the Sun at sunset. Many people have terrible allergy problems with this particular pollen.

As a microvideography subject pollen is not very dynamic but as I was examining this pollen under the microscope I saw the possibilities of video as a way to study some of its motion and dynamism in nature.

Here is a 14 second video of an exine rupture that is not too dramatic but it might be interesting to pollen researchers out there.

http://www.heliotown.com/Juniper_Pollen.html

Tom

Meiji microscope and optics
Canon S3 IS camera in movie mode

[beetleman]

Just looking at the photo is making my eyes run and my nose water (or is it the other way around ). A really nice photo and vid Thomas.

[rjlittlefield]

I had to watch that video about a dozen times, forwards and backwards both, before I really understood what I was seeing. (Thank goodness for the Camtasia Player time slider!) That's a very nice capture on the video, Tom!

--Rik

[Thomas Ashcraft]

I had to watch that video about a dozen times, forwards and backwards both, before I really understood what I was seeing.

--Rik

Hi Rik and Beetleman,

Well, it was just a humble instance of an inner membrane bursting through an outer membrane. Just a small episode in life.

But what I took away from the experience was the possibility of capturing and studying seemingly non-motile subjects like pollen in short videos. Everything is in some form of motion it appears.

All of our imaging efforts and reporting become retrievable documents in the great cosmic google library of life on Earth.

Tom