Art

To get around, Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium use a number of motility strategies, such as twitching and gliding. In this image, we see a special kind of bacterial motility behavior known as swarming, where a mass of bacteria moves collectively across…

It may be hard to believe, but this sea of shiny, donut-shaped colonies are Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonies. These Pseudomonas colonies have a genetic mutation that causes many of the bacteria’s genes to be shut off. The donut-shape of these colonies may…

No one likes to be in crowded spaces, so when colonies reach a critical cell density, cells within the colony begin to lyse, dramatically changing the architecture of the colony. The colony on the left is a wild-type colony, while the colony on the right…

My name is Ian Hill. I am from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I was born and raised.  My passion for biology began in the gardens of my family members. My grandmother was a passionate flower gardener, the head of a local garden club, and my dad…

A single bacterial cell is invisible to the naked eye. As that single cell grows and divides into new cells, however, it forms a visible pile of bacteria. In microbiology, we call this pile of bacteria a colony. A colony’s appearance can indicate a lot…

In a clutch of eggs, some zebrafish are the runts of the litter and may appear younger because of their diminutive size. This is the case for the two zebrafish above. The two are in fact 5-day old siblings. At this stage of development, the zebrafish…

There are a multitude of signals that elegantly orchestrate the proper development of the heart. In this image of a 3-day-old zebrafish heart, the signal that is localized to the developing atrio-ventricular valve and smooth muscle is labeled in green…

Here is the developing zebrafish heart at 3 days post-fertilization. Unlike mammals, which have four chambers, the zebrafish heart consists of only two: a single ventricle (left) and a single atrium (right). Despite the difference in the number of…

My name is Michka Sharpe. I am from Kingston, Jamaica. I developed a passion for the natural world in Jamaica growing up surrounded by water and living in the mountains. I am also from a family of artists and so I learned to appreciate the beauty of what…

The image above shows a developing zebrafish eye 3 days after fertilization. From this perspective, we are staring directly into the eye of the zebrafish and can appreciate both its beauty and its complexity. At this stage, the cells that comprise and…