If you’ve been following James, our master of microscopes, on some of his other platforms, then you know what’s coming. You know that James has published his first academic paper, it's about this extraordinarily rare ciliate that you...

Sometimes our journey through the microcosmos feels like an expedition, a voyage filled with deep dives into the masses of organisms basking under the glow of our microscope. So what does it mean when you don’t find anything. When you...

When you’re in the business of hunting for microbes, sometimes you have to send some weird emails. That’s why James, our master of microscopes, sat down one day to send his own strange request to the people at Coralaxy, a coral farm in...

James, our master of microscopes, is not a farmer. He is, to put it simply, fascinated by microbes. And that may lead him to strange places and cause him to grow tanks full of weird things. But he is not a farmer.

The theme of today's episode is pretty simple: things we never thought we’d be showing you, but here we are.

For an activity that mostly involves sitting and staring, microscopy is a surprisingly high stakes task. On the other side of the lens are drops full of potential, a multitude of worlds to unravel and examine. But they’re also fragile...

We know these cute little water bears can survive the vacuum of space but are they actually immortal? We'll explore that and other misconceptions about tardigrades in this week's journey!

When we look at bacteria under a microscope, they appear to be tumbling around chaotically, but over the centuries we realized that their pathways have a purpose.

We recently discovered some Holospora infecting one of our Paramecium samples. How does that happen? How does the Holospora get in there? And how are they so successful at infecting?

There are only a few groups of bacteria that do this kind of gliding, but they’re found across a plethora of environments, including ponds, soil, and, surprise, in our own mouths.

On this episode of Breaking Trail, Mark and the crew are in Florida with microbiologist Dr. Hunter Hines to find… water bears! Get ready to meet the Tardigrade, a.k.a the Water Bear! Are these creatures actually immortal beings? Or maybe...

From trumpets and spirals to floral arrangements, single cell organisms take on many strange and unique shapes. But they don't look like that just for fun, their shapes can help them with movement, hunting, and even defending themselves.

The Complicated Relationships of the Microcosmos

On this episode of Breaking Trail, Mark and the crew are back in Florida with microbiologist Dr. Hunter Hines to witness something RARE! Watch as the team investigates the mysterious creature the Tardigrade, a.k.a. the Water Bear, after...

Leeuwenhoek: The First Master of Microscopes

Rotifers don’t really get a lot of love when it comes to microscopic animals. At least as far as the public imagination goes, the rotifer is overshadowed by its fellow metazoan of the microcosmos: the tardigrade. And we might be part of...

After over three years of searching for it, our Master of Microscopes has found a Spirostomum semivirescens!

As strange as the creatures of the microcosmos are, their lives still revolve around the same fundamentals that ours do. There’s food, reproduction, and death. Yes, even microbes, hardy as they can be, experience death. In some ways,...

Microbe Hunting in Antarctica

The Beautiful, Brutal Tentacles of Hydra

How Diatoms Build Their Beautiful Shells

It’s fun to watch organisms eat in the microcosmos. There’s a whole range of methods to enjoy. And at the core of all this is a simple, universal need: energy, stored chemically as adenosine triphosphate—or ATP—that’s made from the...

Arthrobotrys is a genus of fungi that not only kills nematodes, but it also sets traps in order to catch them!

Revealing the Hidden Colors of the Microcosmos