Guest Post: Little Ilford School ‘Science Club’

In our fourth post from Year 9 at Little Ilford School, Anisa, Sadia and Tasnim investigate the history of microscopy:

‘Last month our group at the Wellcome Trust learnt about microscopy, the technique of using microscopes to view samples and objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

A favourite for the title of 'inventor of the microscope' was Galileo Galilei. He developed an occhiolino or compound microscope with a convex and a concave lens in 1609. Galileo's microscope was the first such device to be given the name "microscope" (from the Greek words ‘micron’ meaning "small", and ‘skopein’ meaning "to look at").

An explosion in interest occurred in the late 1600s when Dutch researcher Anthony van Leeuwenhoek started documenting “animalcules,” otherwise known as microorganisms. Microorganisms are organisms of a microscopic size. The realization that a miniature world existed without the knowledge of humans led researchers to refine their lenses and microscopy techniques to get better magnification and higher image resolution.

In the library we saw a lithograph of a terrified woman observing a drop of water through a microscope from the early 19^th century. The woman is clearly shocked because of all the pollution and bacteria found in the water, something no one would have been able to see without microscopes.

We also looked at a magnified drawing of a drone fly. This intricate drawing was published in a book called Micrographia, by Robert Hooke in 1665. This book was a huge best seller and intrigued the public about microscopy.

The invention of microscopy is a very valuable one for society, as it allowed us to see so much that was not previously possible with the naked eye. Without microscopes, we would not know about viruses and diseases, which would have had a huge effect on today’s civilisation. Without a microscope, it would be impossible to survive diseases that we have come across.’

Posted on behalf of Anisa, Sadia and Tasnim

Images: Lithograph of a horrified old woman observing the monstrous contents of a drop of water through a microscope, early 19^th century (Wellcome Library no 12080i) 

Drawing of the eyes and head of a grey drone fly from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665)

Scanning electron micrograph of the head of Drosophila Melanogaster fruit fly, 2009 (Wellcome Images ref. 0007686)

Images That Changed the World

Over the last week, BBC Radio 4 have broadcast Images That Changed the World, a series in which Dr Mark Lythgoe explored the development of medical imaging techniques and their wider cultural influences.

The five episodes explored X-Rays, Brain Scanning, Ultrasound, Microscopy and the Double Helix, and featured contributions from scientists, authors and historians.

Friday's episode included commentary from Helen Wakely, Archivist, Wellcome Library on the images shown here: two early sketches of the DNA Double Helix, from the papers of Francis Crick held by the Wellcome.

All the episodes are still available to listen to in the UK through the BBC's iPlayer, and Dr Lythgoe can also be heard discussing the discovery and impact of X-Rays in this BBC audio slideshow.

10th Wellcome Image Awards

Dr Alice M Roberts, best known for her television appearances on BBC’s Don’t Die Young and The Incredible Human Journey, presented the winners of the 2009 Wellcome Image Awards with their trophies last night at Wellcome Collection. This year sees 19 images awarded in three categories: biomedical, illustration and photography.

The Wellcome Image Awards recognise the creators of the most informative, striking and technically excellent images among recent acquisitions to the Wellcome Images collection of medical and historical imagery.

Selected by a panel of expert judges, the winning images were created using a range of microscopic techniques, including combinations of light microscopy and innovative histological approaches, and electron microscopy; illustration, and photography.

The winning images are on display in Wellcome Collection from today until spring 2010. This space is shown in a BBC report, in which Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, talks about his favourite images in the exhibition.

Author: Louise Crane

Cell

The latest strand of BBC4's War Beneath the Skin season was broadcast last night - part one of Cell, a three-part series which in its own words:

"...delves deep into the history of science to tell the story of how we unlocked the mystery of all life on Earth.

'Cell' explores how the discovery of the cell challenged centuries of religious and scientific dogma and then examines how scientists have come to manipulate and exploit the cell for the benefit of modern medicine and science".

Like previous programmes in the season, Cell utilised the Wellcome Library's resources. It drew heavily on Wellcome Images, our photographic library, using both historical and contemporary imagery to trace the growth in our understanding of life's microscopic building blocks.

(The themes of the episode - particularly the erosion of theories such as spontaneous generation - chime with another recent project which drew from Wellcome Images: Making Visible Embryos, an online exhibition created by staff from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, which explores images of embryos and the issues surrounding their depiction throughout history).