On Instagram, you can find plenty of photos of juicy hamburgers, soothing ocean views, and hashtags
On Instagram, you can find plenty of photos of juicy hamburgers, soothing ocean views, and hashtags galore, among other things. What you wouldn’t expect to find are photos of our favorite thing: microbes–until now, that is! Pondlife_pondlife, an account run by Sally Warring, a PhD student at NYU, is only eight months old, but already has almost 9,000 followers, and has just been reported on by The Atlantic. According to the account’s bio, Warring is “documenting the single cellular life of New York City (and occasionally beyond), one pond at a time.”Warring takes samples from various waters in New York City to see the types of microorganisms that lurk within. She later creates the images using her iPhone and a powerful Leica Dm1000 compound microscope at the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, and uploads the stunning results to pondlife_pondlife.Microorganisms are what drove Warring to pursue scientific research as a career. She wanted to convey her passion to an audience that doesn’t have a background in biology. In that sense, her mission has become to educate and entertain at the same time (mission accomplished, we’d say!). Furthermore, Warring shows the Instagram world, with her feed of what she calls “urban phycology,” that there are vastly more life forms in NYC than pigeons, rats, and humans always on-the-go.Follow Sally’s adventures pond to pond at pondlife_pondlife, and read more at the link! -- source link
#science#microbiology#microorganisms#pond water#instagram