Skip to main content

MEGAPIXELS: For a technicolor nightmare, see this fish in high definition

[ad_1]


Announcing all-new, high definition nightmares, brought to you by researchers at the University of Kansas, where biologists have developed new techniques to pose and image certain animals.



The ability to compare vertebrate skeletons in excruciating detail is important for anatomists and taxonomists who need to note minuscule differences for their research. Traditionally they’ve gone about this work by “staining” the bones with dyes, and “clearing” out most of the muscle tissue by dissolving it with a digestive enzyme. You wind up with a colorful but floppy specimen with see-through skin—ready for its close-up.



The new methods supercharge that process by creating the option to pose the creature. After a year of trial and error, a biologist-taxidermist duo cooked up a concoction of gelatin and glycerine that sets slowly enough to suspend your stained-and-cleared specimen in the gel and get your tools (and fingers) out of the way with time to spare. It’s basically Jim Halpert’s dream technology.



Arranging specimens freely will let biologists get clear shots of hard-to-photograph body parts (like the second pair of jaws at the back of a fish’s throat), but that’s only half the story. One of the dyes used to stain the animals shines bright red when exposed to certain types of light. “It fluoresces like a Grateful Dead poster,” evolutionary biologist W. Leo Smith said in a press release. Photographs using normal light can blur fine features, but the red fluorescence produces sharp pictures that will, for better or for worse, etch every last detail into your memory. Sweet dreams!




[ad_2]

Written By Charlie Wood

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ice technicians are the secret stars of the Winter Olympics

[ad_1] The emphasis of this year's two-week-long Winter Olympic Games has been placed squarely on the Olympians themselves. After all, the stated purpose of the international competition is to bring together the world’s greatest athletes in a nail-biting competition across fifteen different winter sports. But before the curlers, skiers, and skaters even arrived in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Olympians of the ice technician world were already a few weeks deep in a competition of their own. Mark Callan of the World Curling Federation and Markus Aschauer of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation both say they’re hoping to make the best ice the Winter Olympics have ever seen. To transform the barren concrete jungle of existing tracks and arenas into an ice- and snow-covered wonderland is an enormous undertaking. And it takes a keen understanding of the physics and chemistry that keeps frozen precipitation pristine. Curling Callan has been making and maintaining ice for m
Post a Comment
Read more

In the wake of NYC terrorist attack, Trump says he's ordered increased 'Extreme Vetting'

[ad_1] President Donald Trump has requested for a heightened vetting program following Tuesday's terrorist attack in New York. @realDonaldTrump: I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this! Earlier, he tweeted that the attack in lower Manhattan was committed by a "sick and deranged person." @realDonaldTrump: In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person. Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.! His remarks came after a motorist drove onto a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center memorial and struck several people on Tuesday, leaving at least eight people dead and a dozen injured. NBC News repor
Post a Comment
Read more

How to save everything you post to social media

[ad_1] If you get the urge to revisit that cute photo you posted some time last year, you'll have to scroll through your timeline for what feels like hours to track it back down. Instead, when you share a post on social media, also save it to your phone for safe-keeping. This will not only save your social media hits for posterity, but also make them easier to find if you ever need to rediscover them. In this guide, we focus on saving photos and videos, because text posts are slightly more complicated—the only way to really preserve text from Facebook and Twitter is to download your entire archive (we'll explain how to do this below), and Instagram and Snapchat don't let you save or export your instant messages at all. When it comes to photos and videos, there's a shortcut to make sure they stay on your phone: Originally film them through a dedicated app, which will save them to a gallery. Only then should you open up a social media app to share them. However, there'
Post a Comment
Read more