Bringing the Micro To Life
There is a universe everywhere we look.
Microcosmos takes readers into a secret world of extreme close-ups, with some subjects have been magnified by as much as 22 million times! Detailed descriptions of the subjets are contained within.
The wood ant, for example, is a social creature, and acts as a slave for the blood-red ant Formica sanguinea. |
Holding steady: The wood or heathland ant holding a microchip in its toothed (serrated) mandibles. The wood ant is social, and acts as a slave for the blood-red ant Formica sanguine
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Colourful clutter: Magnified 22 million times, this microscopic photo is of household dust containing long hairs such as cat fur, twisted synthetic and woollen fibres, a pollen grain, plant, serrated insect scales and insect remains. It comes from Microcosmos, a new book which takes readers into a world of extreme close-ups
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Close encounter: Nylon hooks and loops interweave to form the material more commonly known as Velcro
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Electronic wizardry: This photo - or, more precisely, scanning electron micrograph (SEM) - is of the surface of a silicon microchip
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Cosmic: What may look like a filmmaker's vision of an apocalyptic world is actually a cigarette paper. The blue crystals are additives that keep the lit cigarette burning by producing oxygen
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Magnified seed: Perhaps not as surprising as some of the photos, this microscopic shot is of human sperm
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Enlarged 21 times: This colourful flower is actually of fimbriae, a fringe of tissue, of a Fallopian tube
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Raised eyebrow: Eyelash hairs growing from the surface of human skin.... magnified 50 times
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Another world: A clutch of butterfly eggs sits on a raspberry plant
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The weave of ladies' nylon stocking tights
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The scales from the wing of a peacock butterfly |
You wouldn't want to meet a mosquito that looked like this. Fortunately, the insect's head has here been magnified 160 times
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Vegetable world: Actually looking like you would imagine it to, this is the head of a cauliflower
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Contagious: A human head louse clings to a strand of hair
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A corroded surface of a rusty metal nail appears like an alien environment when enlarged 600 times
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The tip of a hummingbird's tongue (above) is one of many photos taken by 30 'microscopists' and compiled in new book Microcosmos by science author Brandon Broll (below)
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Submitted by: Lara C.
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