SCIENCE INTO IMAGES

The 30th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Photosynthetic dancers”.

Among the protists, the single-celled living beings, differences between “vegetal” and “animal” are unclear. Photosynthetic organisms move like not photosynthetic. There are a lot of single-celled algae traveling in the water while looking for the best place to make photosynthesis. To do so, they have developed strategies very similar to those of the not photosynthetic ones.

This is the 30th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 29th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Micropredator: Didinium”.

Formed by a single cell, Didinium is one of the world’s smallest predators. This speedy and jittery microscopic swimmer is about a tenth of a millimeter long and is able to catch and engulf prey like Paramecium, three times bigger tan himself. To catch them he uses his conical “beak”of the anterior part of the cell, and the tiny stings it has inside, called trichocysts.

This is the 29th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 28th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Number matters”.

For many living beings, number matters. To be a lot and to keep together is advantageous. For social insects as ants and termites it is obligate, but it is the same for many other, especially for those we catalogue as “prey” in the ecosystems. More individuals implies higher probability of survival. It is simply a numerical question, a question of probability. Predators have more options to capturing a prey, but each prey has a higher probability of avoiding the attack.

This is the 28th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 27th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Living biofilm”.

Many species of bacteria associate to create films recovering the submerged surfaces. These films are called biofilms and in some cases they can be a serious problem, for example, when appear on the surface of the surgical prosthesis or when blocking the drains of the houses. Nevertheless, in natural environments, such as the surface of trunks and stones submerged in ponds, lagoons and rivers, these biofilms act as great attractors to other organisms which find there a lot of food resources. Ciliates, rotifers, nematodes and flat worms along with some single celled algae as Euglena, find in these biofilms an excellent place to live

This is the 27th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 26th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Hydractinia, the minimal jellyfish”.

Floating in the water of the sea lives a huge amount of living beings, most of them invisible to the naked eye, that form what we know as plankton. Among them are organisms as delicate as the transparent jellyfish Hydractinia. Hydractinia is a colonial marine hydrozoa with two well differentiated reproductive phases, polyp and jellyfish. This jellyfish, measuring less than half a millimeter in diameter, was one of the first organisms used as a model to study stem cells and cell reprogramming.

This is the 26th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 25th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Salty life”.

Brine shrimp is a very special crustacean. It lives is salty waters, mainly in the salty lagoons and it posseses some amazing adaptations. Its eggs, called cysts, have been used in several spatial studies, for example in the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 NASA missions, because its ability to overcome long drought periods (cryptobiosis). These wonderful eggs have been sold in the market with the name of “Sea Monkeys”.

This is the 25th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.

The 24th chapter of the “Inhabitants of the microworld” series is called “Beewolf”.

Wasps of the genus Philanthus are named “Beewolves”. And this name has a simple explanation. These solitary and digger wasps are especialized in hunting honey bees. They hunt them on the flowers where bees go to feed on nectar and to collect the polen, and the wasp inoculates the venom through its sting. The bite does not kill the bee but  paralizes it. Once the bee has been hunted and paralized the wasp carries it to the tunnel she has excavated into the sand and leaves it into one of the several subterranean chambers. Then the wasp lays one egg from which will hatch a larva who will get fresh food during all the time the development of the wasp larva takes because the bee remains alive.

This is the 24th chapter of a series that will bring to us a video per day during this confinement forced by COVID-19.

We hope that you enjoy this initiative, which gives access to a documentary series for free to the world, and you share it with everyone you think will possibly be interested.

Science into Images’s team.