

This discovery by Nobel prize winner Dr. Osama Shimomura known as Green Fluorescent has revolutionized molecular biology. Movement of living molecules generally can be seen but the advent of GFP made the invisible visible. The protein, found in jellyfish helps researchers track substances of all kinds, in real time, and show how they mark cells, maintain them and function in concert with other cells.

John Runions is a little bit like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – only that his two identities both have a Dr title. Most of his time he spends working, teaching and playing with the microscopes at Oxford Brookes University. But when nobody is watching, he puts on his cape of knowledge, takes his sword of science enthusiasm and leaps on air as “Dr Molecule” for BBC Radio Oxford. John’s website is like a little treasure chest, full with microscopy images and movies. You can even watch one of his presentations from the last GARNet meeting 2011 on YouTube...

It’s Friday and therefore I present you with two beautiful animations about the inner workings of a cell. Bring a packed lunch, your camera and a big bag of excitement and hop on the tour bus guiding you through an animal and a plant cell. “Over there you can see the world’s largest mitochondrion. Few people know that it was the inspiration for the Michelin man…” I hope that these videos will not only show you how complex and fascinating cells are, but also how much similarities there are between animal and plant cells. Cells rock!

Apoptosis is a mechanism in which death of an unhealthy cell is initiated and orchestrated through a tightly controlled molecular cascade. The steps of this cascade are visualised in this video. Drew Berry, who created the stunning animation, says: “The technique I used to make it work was difficult and very slow to pull off. The whole 4 min sequence took me around 12 months to research, construct and generate the imagery. I think visually it is my most successful piece at showing the mechanisms that emerge from randomly wandering, cytoplasmic molecules and membrane bound receptors.” (Molecular Animation of...

The Khan Academy is on a mission to provide free online educational resources for everyone, no matter if you are a student, teacher or “a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology”. With over 2700 videos available, they are doing very well! This blackboard-style video explains the different parts of a cell.

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...
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