A nice visit to the museum

Early in May we had a wonderful visit from one of NorDigBryo's two master's students: Maria. Maria works with the difficult group Cyclostomatida, and relies on good electron microscopy images to be able to identify a lot of the species.

That's why we invited Maria here so that she could get a quick training in how to use our "small" tabletop electron microscope. Incidentally, I (Mali) have spent many, many hours here taking pictures of many bryozoan colonies through the past couple of years.

A photo of a woman who is looking at a screen and smiling. Next to her is a rectangular shaped machine​
Maria managed to take several hundreds of images while she was here at the museum! Photo: Mali H. Ramsfjell

Since Maria was going to be here for a week, she had a lot of time to explore the world of the electron microscope on her own after a quick round of instructions. The result was over 400 images, and it's quite impressive since the process of taking each photo takes about a minute and a half, you spend a lot of time moving the object around to find the best places to photograph, some samples may need to be cleaned before you can take pictures of them, and you spend time changing the objects.

A photo of a woman in a lab in the process of cleacing samples using a sonic cleaner.​
By using a sonic cleaner you can get rid of the dirt and other particles that cover the colonies. This is important when imaging tiny details! Photo: Mali H. Ramsfjell.

Not only that, but we also had Tine visit us one of the days! She is a former master's student who has worked with bryozoans too, and she is also an avid participant in the NorDigBryo workshops! So we ended up having a nice little NorDigBryo gathering that day.

A selfie with three smiling bryozoologists in front of the electron microscope​
Three happy bryozoologists! From the left: Mali, Tine and Maria. Foto: Mali H. Ramsfjell

 

By Mali Hamre Ramsfjell
Published June 4, 2025 3:25 PM - Last modified June 4, 2025 3:33 PM
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