James Weiss’s Hidden World

Even though we moved from Travis County to Hays County, I maintain a City of Austin Public Library card because one branch is very convenient on the way home from  grocery shopping. Browsing the life sciences stacks around Dewey Decimal 570, I found The Hidden Beauty of the Microscopic World by James Weiss. I renewed it twice. It was easy enough to flip through the pictures. Then, I made the time to read the story. 

The Hidden Beauty of the Microscopic World is a picture book but the author does deliver an informative narration, nicely balanced between technical correctness and common readability without the gee-whiz and golly of so much populist science. Weiss shares his own diary of discoveries.

 

The Hidden Beauty of the Microscopic World
by James Weiss. London: Watkins Press, 2021.

Weiss says little about himself, other than he was living in Poland and on a very limited budget when he took an active interest in the microscopic world. I infer that he was at university and this new hobby was an extension of his classwork because he credits professors in the frontispiece. He gathered up his zlotny and bought himself a binocular microscope and began his new journey. 

Laxodes karyorelictea

 

Weiss collected samples from ponds, streams, and the Vistula river, and from trees, soils, and other places around. In addition, he kept a tank of water into which he put many of his samples after photographing them. From that he also harvested targets for study as the ecosystem developed and evolved. 

 

Lacrymaria olor

As Weiss honed his methods he settled into a presentation style. Except for the subject displayed, the pictures all look very much alike. Paramecium, euglena, or tardigrade, everything is very green and sometimes a little out of focus away from the center. There are  few opposite contrast dark lightings and no stains. 

Paramecium at top is infected with
bacilli. That kind of symbiosis may be the
source of our mitochondria.

Darks are an old technique that reveal other features of the object by passing less light through them. I discovered the same thing at age ten with my own Tasco microscope: use the back of the mirror as the reflector. Somewhere in a box is a snapshot of a salt crystal taken with my mother’s Kodak 828 Pony.

Must show a Tardigrade, of course.

James Weiss served as a writer and researcher for the MicroCosmos channel on YouTube which ran from 2019 through 2024. 

They produced 346 videos and attracted over 900,000 subscribers and even sold their own brand of binocular microscope and a soundtrack before closing up and moving on.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Before Darwin 

A New Microscope 

Stem Cell Collection 

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success

From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell 

Epigenetics and Evolution 

Microscopy (again)

  

The Morning Sky

Stepping outside with the cat after her breakfast, I stopped to take in the sky. I felt comfort from the familiar sight and regret for not being involved with it. Astronomy is more affective than microscopy. 

In neither am I truly discovering anything. In both, I only see what others have said is there:  stars in a cluster; cells in a tissue. If not for the books (and websites) I would have little, if any, understanding of what I am looking at, though biology does allow more opportunity for informed inference. The walls of cells are visibly tractable while (with my instruments) the strata of stars are not.

On the left (south) Scorpius with Claws Zuben el Eshmali
and Zuben el Genubi. To the right (west) Corvus.
Xi Scorpii here and Corvus here.

The telescopes remain all packed away. Yesterday, I put the microscopes and slides back into storage. 

 

I expected to view the present conjunction of Saturn and Venus, and I watched the approach as of last week, but I put it off. I went out last night and saw only Venus. Checking the charts, I understood that a telescope would have provided the view I sought. 

 

PREVIOULSY ON NECESSARY FACTS

ELI the ICEman: Science and Technology 

Epigenetics 

Fantastic Voyages: Teaching Science with Science Fiction

The Madam Curie Complex 

Microscopy (again)

Ahead of a medical procedure, I was cautioned that I will not be doing any bending and lifting for a couple of months or more. So, I packed away all of my telescopes and sealed the boxes until spring. Mars will be just past the meridian at 9:00 PM Central Time on March 15. In the meantime, I set up the dining table again for microscopy.

In numismatics we say, "If you don't know your coins, know your dealer." That applies in many areas. Reading in discussion groups online for amateur microscopy, several people raved  about the great deals they found on Goodwill dot com and I did buy two microscopes there. Nice enough as they were for the price, they were not great deals and from that point forward, I gathered bookmarks to websites for microscope retailers and name brands for scientific supplies. 

The Cloudy Nights discussion board for amateur astronomers has a forum for this, "Cloudy Days: Microscopes" here https://www.cloudynights.com/forum/104-cloudy-days-microscopes/  I also visit the Microbe Hunter discussion board here https://www.microbehunter.com/microscopy-forum/. That board is the work of Oliver Kim whose main board is Microbe Hunter: https://www.microbehunter.com He has been doing this for several years, has very many very helpful videos on YouTube, and sells by pass-through clicks on Amazon. Also on YouTube, I found Journey to the Microcosmos, which provides a lot of entertaining videos about very small things seen very large. 

Other hobbyists  online have recommended other resources such as Quekett, a UK group with international membership. Interesting as they all are, I have not joined anything new yet. (I just filed an article about the Huygens probe to Titan with the History of Astronomy Division of the American Astronomical Society. And I still have a day job.) 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

A New Microscope

Microscopy 

Biohackers 

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success 

Disruptive Diagnostics and the Business of Science

A New Microscope

To support my emotional buy-in to my most important medications, I responded to an email from AmScope. I shopped for a binocular microscope for about six months and engaged in online chat with other hobbyists regarding the options for makes and models. I took the general advice from Oliver Kim at Microbobe Hunter (https://www.microbehunter.com) and accepted this offer of a good-enough microscope that will serve for three years of careful use.

 

AmScope B270. 4x, 10x, 40X, and
100X (immersion) objectives
with10x oculars in Siedentopf head;
with extended warranty $286.

Based on my experience in astronomy, my prejudice was for a Zeiss model, costing ten times as much. The fact is that I do not work professionally at that level. All I want to do is view prepared slides of human histology specimens. Comparing and contrasting what is offered across the hobby market, right now, my engagement was best served with a modest upgrade to my current inventory. Before this purchase, my best instruments came from Goodwill Online, three of them for under $150 total.  I also inherited from a neighbor in Austin a very nice – but very used – Tasco set with specimens and et ceteras.

 

So, this is an incremental improvement. And as with astronomy and backyard stargazing, my viewing is only in support of other involvements at a different level. I also have two sets of prepared slides, very general including bugs and plants. I am now shopping online at professional laboratory companies for human histology specimens. 

 

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

 

Biohackers 

Biobash: Chamber Replicates Success 

Before Darwin 

From Texas to the Moon with John Leonard Riddell