(Roughly) Daily

First Place: a colonial plankton organism, Chaetoceros debilis (marine diatom), magnified 250x
by Wim van Egmond, of the Micropolitan Museum, Berkel en Rodenrijs, Zuid Holland, Netherland

Nikon has announced the winners of this year’s Small World Photomicrography Competition.  Browse the gallery here or here.

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As we resolve to be more thorough as we vacuum, we might send microscopic birthday greetings to Rita Rossi Colwell; she was born on this date in 1934.  The first U.S. scientist to create a computer program to analyze data related to the taxonomic classification of different strains of bacteria, she enabled the surprising discovery that the strain of cholera bacteria that had been linked to the disease belonged to the same species as benign strains of cholera. Subsequently, her team of researchers found that both the harmless and the disease-causing (toxin-producing) strains were found commonly in estuaries and coastal waters.

She is perhaps better known as the 11th Director of the National Science Foundation– the first woman to hold that post.  In 2004, she was awarded the National Medal of Science.

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