KPC3355-3358: The microscopic world

Depending on different perspectives, the world as seen from a microscope can become either advanced technology or artworks. The prize-winning photographs from the Science in Color that was organized by Chungcheongbuk-do, Chungbuk National University MedRIC, and Osong Bio Promotion Foundation, which show cells and tissues that cannot be observed with the human eye have now been printed on stamps.

The leftmost artwork that resembles the graphical facial features of an old man with a white beard from the side is a photo of our knee joint magnified 100 times. Soft tissues are mainly found in the cartilages and ligaments of our joints as well as in fats. The pink sections are mostly collagen fibres, while the red parts located around the eye are ground bone fragments. Also, the parts that resemble a white beard are adipose tissues.

The picture that seems to be an expanded red flower is actually a pimple on a rabbit s ear. After treating oleicacid on a rabbit s ears, pimples occurred. The skin tissue was carefully taken from the rabbit and was then treated with chemicals so it could be observed through an electron microscope with 250 times magnification. Simply by coloring the pimple part with red on the black and white photo taken with an electron microscope made it look like a blooming flower.

The photo that clearly resembles a flower garden with many yellow dandelions is actually the lumen of the intestinal gland and goblet cells. After cutting off the mucous membrane from the colon, which is part of the large intestine, images were taken of the intestinal gland(intestinal crypt) that secretes intestinal juice with 200 times magnification. The part that is similar to the yellow flower is the intestinal gland, while the large circle at the center of the yellow shape is the lumen of the intestinal gland, and the small circles surrounding the large circle are the goblet cells that secrete mucous at the mucous epithelium.

The rightmost picture that seems to be a pink dolphin frowning is in fact a photo of a rat s retina. The retina of a rat was treated with chemicals, and the picture of the thinly sliced specimen was taken with 6500 times magnification by using a transmission electron microscope. The vacuole inside the cell resembles the head and tail of the dolphin, and the image looks like an exhausted and gloomy face.