Comments

  2. llewelly says

    Now all we need is Carl Sagan explaining how to perform the Kabbalic Rituals that enable scientists to Take Over The World! I hear the DVD should be out any time now.

  4. ctenotrish, FCD, PhD says

    The high and low power organ crushers vividly remind me of an evening at a summer embryology course in Woods Hole. I had spent hours that day timing Xenopus embryo development, moving them in and out of a cool room to ‘catch’ them at neurulation. The plan was to use the impressive Zeiss miscroscopes in their time-lapse format to make an over night short movie of Xenopus neurulation. After a day of timing development, and after quite a bit more time moving the embryos into position, and setting up the time-lapse system, I hit start. And the objective rotated into place, and the electronic stage smoothly lifted into the programmed position, and the bloody objective promptly squashed my beautiful embryos into goo. Apparently, a fellow student had changed objectives without changing the Zeiss program settings. Back then, I was not computer-operated-microscope savvy, and didn’t know to check such things. I was crushed. But not as crushed as the Xenopus. Organ crushers indeed. I still have the time-lapse recording of that around somewhere. It was gruesome.

  8. NJ says

    Microscope? You call that a microscope?

    No rotating stage.
    No sub-stage polarizer.
    No condensing lens.
    No incident light source.
    No analyser above the objectives.
    No slots for accessory plates.
    No Bertrand-Amici lens or pinhole.

    How in the world do you expect to get any work out of this? ;>

  9. Bob O'H says

    You want to possess a microscope? I bet the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t have a ceremony to exorcise demons from microscopes.

    Bob

  10. says

    Heh. Nice.
    Too bad I deleted my CafePress account. I had a funny shirt up there at one point that said “My science can beat up your science”. It was cool.

    But actually now that I think about it, you would have taken issue with me calling Creationism science. So, I guess it wouldn’t have worked anyway. ah, well no matter.

    z.

  14. Sonja says

    One of my favorite quotes:

    Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not occur to nature whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.
    Rudolf Arnheim

    The microscope is the perfect symbol for SatanScience — it allows us to see that we not at the center of god’s glorious plan.

  15. Carlie says

    It only has one eyepiece!!! And as we all know Woody Allen said, “Can the human soul be glimpsed through a microscope? Maybe – but you’d definitely need one of those very good ones with two eyepieces.”

    James Thurber is less pithy, but still enjoyable:

    “We’ll try it,” the professor said to me, grimly, ‘ with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. As God is my witness, I’ll arrange this glass so that you see cells through it or I’ll give up teaching. In twenty-two years of botany, I -‘ He cut off abruptly for he was beginning to quiver all over, like Lionel Barrymore, and he genuinely wished to hold onto his temper; his scenes with me had taken a great deal out of him.

    So we tried it with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one of them did I see anything but blackness or the familiar lacteal opacity, and that time I saw, to my pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flecks, specks, and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips and his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing. “What’s that?” he demanded, with a hint of a squeal in his voice. “That’s what I saw, ” I said. “You didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t!,” he screamed, losing control of his temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the microscope. His head snapped up. “That’s your eye!” he shouted. “You’ve fixed the lens so that it reflects! You’ve drawn your eye!”

  17. says

    Steve C – well, neither really. Certainly not to be funny. I just enjoy hanging out around here for some reason. I know, I might be the odd man in the group, but I still enjoy the stimulating conversations. And I always love a good debate. Sooo… yeah.

    z.

  18. Thony C. says

    Microscope? You call that a microscope?

    Leeuwenhoek did all of his work with a single lens microscope illuminated by sunlight focused through a glass bulb filled with water! You modern guys are just pampered!

  23. Jim in STL says

    Eyepieces.. how quaint.
    Posted by: Pete

    I nominate this as coffee-spew-across-the-monitor comment of the week.

    What? There aren’t catagories?

  24. Tara Mobley says

    My first two thoughts when seeing that this morning were “Hmmm, do I want that t-shirt?” and “I wonder if PZ reads Goats. If he does, it’ll be on his blog.”

  28. David Harmon says

    Sonja: You’ll probably love this butterfly pic….

    GrrlScientist has been posting an impressive stream of nature photos over the last few months. (And no, I’m not just saying that because she posted a few of mine! ;-) )

  29. Karley says

    Why does Pharyngula not have any merch? You should hold a contest for a t-shirt design. That way, I can humor the thought that my competition would actually have a chance.
    Or is merch against scienceblog rules?

  31. says

    Nate: the Blasphemy Chamber did it for me, too. Good name for a blog going begging there, too. Is refraction mentioned in the bible? If not, can it exist?

  33. szook says

    Hmmm rather ironic considering that Hooke and Anton van Leeuwenhoek were committed christians. This shirt is funny for sure, just not what you might think at first glance……