Secrets of another world
A POWERFUL microscope has been helping secondary school students reveal the secrets of flora and fauna.
Portsmouth pupils have been given access to an electron microscope, from the University of Portsmouth, which can magnify up to 50,000 times.
The microscope has been used to encourage and inspire students to see science as an exciting world of discovery as part of a competition for the university's outreach programme Up For It.
The pupils aged 11 to 14 have been offered prizes for paying close attention to minute detail in plant or insect specimens and for being able to research and report on how some of the smallest things in our world have adapted to suit their environment.
Dr Simon Cragg, lecturer in marine zoology, said: 'A light microscope can magnify up to about 1,000 times whereas microscopes for solid objects rarely give good results above 100 times magnification as most of the subject will be blurred.
'The scanning electron microscope gives a highly detailed three-dimensional image of a tiny subject, for example showing details of a single cell.'
The competition is now closed and the best entries will go on display in the university's Purple Door building in Guildhall Walk on March 7 to coincide with the start of National Science and Engineering Week.
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 26 May 2012
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