Saturday, December 12, 2009

Round 2

Round 2 . . . What is this a picture of, and what is it doing?

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15 comments:

  1. Is this a drop of milk splashing?

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  2. It's a white blood cell sitting on a silicon substrate.

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  3. It is not a drop of milk

    OK, Nate, your entry is not incorrect, it is just not complete. What is the White Blood cell doing other than sitting on a silicon substrate.

    Now, how could you possibly know that the substrate is silicon, since this is an almost unheard of condition (since silicon is not a material used in biologigal situations)

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  4. Okay, it's attaching itself to the substrate.

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  5. Nate,
    No, it is doing something of signifigance, not something trivial.
    PJM

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  6. Note To Self: Perhaps Nate knows less about Microbiology than history, antiquities, photography, philosophy, and education. Hmmm . . . perhaps I have found his Achilles Heel

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  7. It is most probably enveloping the silicon in a bio film as part of the white blood cell's immune system function

    Dan

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  8. Dan,
    Ahhh, nice try, but not really catching the key aspect of specifically what it is doing.
    PJM

    Note to self.
    Need to throw in some microbiology every once in a while to improve my standing on the blog.

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  9. It has attached itself so if can have a nice meal of yummy bacteria.

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  10. it also appears to be in the process of fractionation to penetrate the silicon substrate.

    Dan

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  11. I will accept Joe's answer as correct. The White Blood cell is eating bacteria, or fighting infection.

    Look at the center of the White blood cell . . . you can see a strand of 5 cocci type bacteria that the white blood cell has attached itself to and is consuming.

    Look at the arm coming off the white blood cell at the 8 oclock position . . . it has attached itself, and is consuming, 3 cocci type bacteria on the substrate. At the 6:30 position, another tendon is coming out and consuming a single bacteria cell. If you look at the smaller, round spots on the substrate, those are bacteria, and the white blood cell is destroying the ones in the middle.

    Hope you had a little fun with this one.
    PJM

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  12. Cool! I wonder what year it was taken?

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  14. It has been a long hard day at work so only just got on to check this out. It made me chuckle reading Nate's quick (and informative) reply and PJM's rundown on Nate's knowledge.
    Great work guys.

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  15. It looks like a diatom.....and I'm guessing its undergoing cell division aka reproduction.

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