Monday 16 July 2012

Last post 2010? Well, it seems like making a blog didn't encourage me to stick with anything much.

Lately I've found myself interested in biology. It seems one of the hardest subjects for an amateur to really get stuck into. I'll be posting more about what I'm getting up to over the next few weeks.

First up, what I was playing around with today. Here's a cheek cell under the microscope. The nucleus is clearly visible.


Cheek cells easily come away from inside your mouth with a cotton bud. This is just a dry mount. I put the cell on a slide, and took the image. Cheek cells show up better with a wet mount and stain. You put a drop of water on the sample, add a glass coverslip, and theen you place a drop of stain (like gentian violet) on one side, and a tissue on the other to draw the stain through by capilliary action.