In this video by Andrew Harrison, Charlie Chaplin and an unnamed plant biologist show us how they turn frozen peas into samples for microscopy.
This is the more detailed video description from Chlorofilms, where the video won an honourable mention in the fourth competition.
“In this video we used a Charlie Chaplin “spoof” This video will demonstrate that differential centrifuge, microscopy and staining are three important tools for study of plant cells. 1. under low speed of differential centrifuge, we can separate whole cells from the cell homogenate; 2. microscopy can reveal details of the cellular structures. 3. different staining methods can help us identify different organelles present in the plant cells. We made pea cell homogenate by using a blender, and then we did low speed centrifuge to pellet the whole cells out. After re-suspending the pellet, we made three slides, one control (without any staining), one stained with methylene blue, and one stained with Lugol’s iodine. Methylene blue will stain nuclei deep blue. Thus, under light microscope, we will find that the nuclei and amyloplasts will be revealed by different staining.”
