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Summer 2021, Volume 16, #2
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Message from the President
Hello you awesome microscopists!
A few weeks ago we hosted our first virtual event, which was an absolute delight! If you missed it, you can watch Microscopes for Space Exploration here. We welcomed three amazing speakers who hunt for extraterrestrials with microscopes – Scott Peterson looks at micrometeorites he finds on rooftops and Jay Nadeau works with Chris Lindensmith on developing microscopes that could detect life in our solar system. Each shared their amazing work and at the end we moderated a fun Q&A session diving deeper into their work as microscopists. We had a lot of fun and are planning future themed virtual events in the coming months.
Keen to collaborate more with the San Francisco Microscopical Society? We're keen to sync up with you! We're on the lookout for volunteers who could offer a wide range of skills (art, tech, fundraising, writing, social media, volunteer management, etc.) to help us turn the Society into an amazing community resource for everyone. We're also on the lookout for anyone who can help us write/apply for grants and anyone who has experience in managing business bookkeeping with QuickBooks Online.
Whether you can volunteer for a stand-alone task or on a monthly-basis, we could use your help. Let's chat – shoot us an email!
--
Ariel Waldman
President of the San Francisco Microscopical Society
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Letters from the Co-Editors
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From MicroNews’ Co-Editor, Henry Schott:
It has been quite a long haul, this publishing and printing of MicroNews, and sometimes it seemed that the load was getting heavier without the path flattening out. You know the feeling if you have gone on long backpacking hikes. You were counting on good weather and instead the clouds are closing in and you can barely see a hundred feet ahead. You expect the trail to flatten out as it does on the floor of a valley, but you are still more than two hours from your campsite, it is cold and damp, and you are getting tired of what seems an endless uphill struggle. You ask yourself if this is what you expected. Well, no! This is not what you were counting on, but you knew it could happen. That is when you remember the good moments of past adventures. That is when you stop to have a drink and reach into your pocket for the candy bar that will give you renewed energy to reach your goal. That is how it feels when the current issue of MicroNews was addressed and stamped and put into the mail.
The times, they are a’changing. We no longer print and mail the newsletter. You will find it in your computer’s in-box or on your mobile phone or tablet. Colored pictures, which we could not afford to print, are now the norm. Videos that in the past could only be referenced in the text are now included. Sound, which you would have had to use your imagination to hear is now a reality, and soon, when we talk of a cold wind blowing, your computer will blow such a frigid blast in your face that you will think you are at the north pole! How can they do that, you will ask. Yes, I have been asking that a long time.
When in January 2021, the election of officers occurred in a Zoom meeting, Ariel Waldman became president and soon recruited several new members who learned of the Society through the grapevine. (I would have wished that the grape vine had been in a bottle of good wine, but we were still under the pandemic lockdown). We are enriched by 14 new members as I write this.
There comes a time when you realize that change is needed. New ideas need expression and the voices of the past that may have been familiar no longer sound the same. A person with a positive attitude towards our times needs to be recruited to reflect what is possible in this new art of publishing on the internet. We are fortunate to have someone who is capable and interested in taking on the task of editing the MicroNews. Though new to the Society, my co-editor on this and subsequent issues is the Biological Oceanographer Jenny Jacox, Ph.D., who studied marine biology as an undergraduate. She has both the time and the interest to guide future issues and to find the voices that reflect what is current and of interest in microscopy and in our Society. You, as the readers, have an important role in helping to make MicroNews your means of communication within the Microscopical Society. Expand your role from being a passive receiver of news and information to also being contributors by writing to the editors your concerns, observations, and ideas, be they supportive or critical reactions.
This publication is your place to show the pictures you take through your microscope. This is the place where you can ask relevant questions and where you can bring your discoveries and experiences in microscopy. Your support is vital to making MicroNews the organic expression of its members. Your active participation gives these pages the breath-of-life and the intelligence derived from the united strength of our community and its wisdom.
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From MicroNews’ new Co-Editor, Jenny Jacox:
In August 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, MicroNews published the following message from our then-President Hank Fabian: “Paraphrasing the words of my hero, Rahm Emanuel, we may be in a crisis, but there is no need to let it go to waste. Here is my suggestion: start sharing microscopic images (micrographs) with fellow SFMS members and friends.” The title of the article was “SFMS Will Persevere”.
I joined SFMS in February 2021, and in my eyes SFMS has done more than persevere. Indeed, SFMS did not let the crisis go to waste. It was the cameras on our microscopes and in our laptops that enabled us to see each other, meet, connect, brainstorm, plan, and yes, share micrographs and live-views. The first-quarter surge in SFMS membership, and the material that so naturally fed this issue of MicroNews, are proof and testament to SFMS not having wasted the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While I grew up in Albany, and have seawater in my veins from a childhood spent on the reefs and trails of West Marin, I live now in Monterey, California. It is precisely because of our new-found virtual connectivity and SFMS’ online presence that I am able to seamlessly connect and stay connected, and take on service as co-editor of MicroNews.
I have spent the past few months reaching back into SFMS history so that, as we look forward, we do so without losing sight of our past. I have only just begun this project (and please contact me if you have any history - in any form - to share) but a touching insight has already come clear: Although, yes, the times they are a’changin, what knitted the SFMS community of the past continues to knit us today. SFMS’ first virtual event, held May 29, 2021, included a members-only pre-event, in which SFMS member Janai Southworth shared options for equipping your microscope with a camera - or your iPhone camera with a microscopical lens. The virtual event itself showcased micrometeorites and progress - with microscopes - in space exploration. All of this recalls the activities and purpose of the very first meetings of SFMS, held not only to share information and achievements but to swap tricks, lessons and technique. Earlier SFMS meetings often involved dinner; these days, many of us inadvertently enjoy a meal together while attending our dinner-hour monthly brainstorming meetings. When I asked my co-editor, Henry Schott, what it is about the hobby of microscopy that has held him for all of these years, he paused and with a patient chuckle explained that lately, it’s more the Society that has become the hobby. In many conversations since I have come to understand how much Henry values the SFMS community as much as the intellectual stimulation it affords. That same valuation radiates from past issues of MicroNews and from minutes of meetings long past, as much as from the messages in our new Slack workspace (please reach out to hello@sfmicrosociety.org if you’d like to join us there).
I’m grateful to have found this community, which is diverse and eclectic but united in wonder of what often goes unseen. MicroNews has always reflected the Society’s thoughts, activities, interests, and attitude and so I look forward to simply taking my turn at holding up the mirror to you all.
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Upcoming SFMS Events
Microscopes and Chill
Every Friday, 12-2pm
Virtual meeting via Zoom.
Two SFMS members, Jenny Jacox and Janai Southworth, co-host a ‘Microscopes and Chill’ forum that began May 21, 2021 and will continue indefinitely on Fridays. SFMS Members are invited to attend to share whatever might be under their microscope that day - or just come chill and see what is under ours. To attend, please email Jenny.
SFMS Virtual Brainstorming Meetups
Have some ideas rattling around in your head about things you'd like to do with the Society? Join our brainstorming meetups.
Thursday, July 8, 6pm
Thursday, August 12, 6pm
Join via Zoom.
SFMS Board Meeting
The SFMS Board meets quarterly to discuss the current state of the Society and vote on any new undertakings. Members of SFMS are welcome to join these meetings to listen in, provide feedback, and to get to know the Board members.
Thursday, August 19, 5-7pm
Email us to attend the virtual meeting.
SFMS Public Lecture Series
Stay tuned for the next event in the series! In the meantime, you can watch our previous event, Microscopes for Space Exploration.
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Society Updates
SFMS is having a growth spurt! SFMS has already seen incredible growth in 2021, with a 50%+ increase in membership since the start of the year. We extend a warm welcome to each of our new members, and look forward to continued growth, together. Four of our new members are highlighted in the New Member Spotlight.
Got (SFMS) History? The SFMS History Project is underway and ongoing! As we look forward, we are taking care to preserve and honor our past. If you have any pieces of SFMS history to share - personal stories, photos, memorabilia (or photos of memorabilia), articles, meeting notes, etc. - please share them via email.
Connect with us on Slack! SFMS has a new Slack workspace, now open to all SFMS members, for communication and collaboration. If you’d like to join this community space, please send us an email.
Calling all DIY microscopists. We are already hearing the whispers of an unofficial ‘DIY’ theme that will flavor our next issue of MicroNews (coming to you in September). These whispers so far tell of homemade plankton nets, a personal quest for amoebae, and getting pragmatic with Fly Death Fungus. Exciting! And empowering. If you have a tip, trick, or DIY-microscopy story to empower and/or inspire us all, please get in touch.
SFMS Board meeting. Download the summary of our recent Board meeting from May 20, 2021.
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New Member Spotlight
Introducing...
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Jenny Jacox, SFMS Secretary, Co-Editor of MicroNews
Jenny uses running shoes to explore our coast and microscopes to explore our coastal waters. She joins SFMS as your new Secretary and as Co-Editor of MicroNews.
Jenny was born and raised in Albany, California but it was the ocean colors and wave trains of Bolinas Bay, and the rich invertebrate biology and geology of Duxbury Reef, that sparked her early and lasting curiosity about the ocean. After graduating from Berkeley High, Jenny earned a B.S. in Marine Biology from UC Santa Cruz. Her senior thesis advisor was Dr. Raphael Kudela (Ocean Sciences). Jenny went on to study Ocean Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, earning her PhD under the guidance of Dr. Kudela.
The focus of Jenny’s doctoral research was harmful algal blooms (HABs), particularly those of the marine diatom Pseudo-nitzschia, which can produce a neurotoxin called domoic acid. When this neurotoxin is biomagnified in the food web it can cause neurologic disorder and death in birds, marine mammals, and humans.
Initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa honors society, Jenny also was an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) scholar. After earning her PhD, Jenny worked in coastal policy and management at the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). As a post-doctorate, she received the ARCS Distinguished Alum Award and was a founding member of the ARCS Alum Leadership Council. In addition to her continued service with ARCS, Jenny serves on the Del Monte Forest Hiking and Equestrian Trail Committee, and is a Coastwalk organizer/planner with Coastwalk California.
Married to Dr. Mike Jacox, a physical oceanographer at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Research Division (NOAA ERD) in Monterey, CA, Jenny devotes her energy to nurturing her young family, trail running, and racing ultramarathons, while also pursuing her many interests in the marine environment, including weekly phytoplankton monitoring at the municipal wharf in Monterey.
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Lisa Henderson, SFMS Member
SFMS became further amphibious this quarter, in welcoming Lisa Henderson, another open ocean swimmer, to its membership. Welcome, Lisa!
Lisa has always loved the ocean. She began collecting plankton for NOAA when her kids were somewhat grown and needed less attention, identifying them using a 1950's microscope her father had used to teach high school science. She found the Microscopical Society while listening to Ariel Waldman's TED talk, and figured joining might be a good way to get advice on moving up to owning a REAL microscope.
In other parts of her life, Lisa is an engineer with degrees in electrical and civil engineering from Caltech and MIT, and manages the design of data centers for Google and hospitals for UCSF. She is an avid open water swimmer off Crissy Field, and used to docent at the Academy of Sciences back when we could leave the house.
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Anna McGaraghan, SFMS Member
Among our new members this quarter is Anna McGaraghan. However, as you will read below, with Anna comes the additional pleasure of introducing Miranda, a new SFMS ‘member’ by proxy. Welcome, Anna (and Miranda)!
Photo: Anna McGaraghan (L) with Miranda (R) on Pier 17 in San Francisco. Credit: Anna McGaraghan
Anna McGaraghan was born and raised in coastal Maine. Her first experience with phytoplankton and microscopes was during her undergraduate education, as she sailed from Cape Cod to the Caribbean with Sea Semester. A Geology major, Anna’s senior independent project had her analyzing diatoms from sediment cores in Antarctica, where she spent 6 weeks on a research vessel. While working towards her B.A. in Geology, Anna also worked as a deckhand for a ferry company; this had her interacting with the working waterfront and fishing communities of small Maine islands, and thus began her transformation from land animal to salty mariner. Anna served as a volunteer monitor for the Department of Marine Resources Biotoxin Program while living and working on a small Maine island, and taught school kids about phytoplankton on Catalina Island, before beginning her M.S. in Ocean Science from UC Santa Cruz.
These days, Anna is a phytoplankton ecologist living and raising a young family in Berkeley, while working in Dr. Raphael Kudela’s lab at UC Santa Cruz. Completing her transformation from terrestrial to marine, Anna is an open water swimmer and enjoys weekly swims in San Francisco Bay, during which she tries to think about phytoplankton instead of sunken ships and sharks. She has participated in phytoplankton programming with the Exploratorium in San Francisco, helped to develop the Plankton Monitoring Program with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and serves on the Advisory Board of the educational non-profit OceansMicro. She currently works closely with a phytoplankton imaging robot named Miranda.
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Lena Blackmon, SFMS Member
It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome Lena Blackmon, a shooting star who has only just begun a brilliant trajectory. Lena has already attended several of our brainstorming meetings, bringing to SFMS not only cutting-edge microscopy skills and expertise (that serve medical research that might just save us all someday) but also her sunny disposition and great ideas. Welcome, Lena!
Lena Blackmon is currently working on the computational microscopy platform at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. She is building microscopes and tools to help diagnose human disease. In the past, she worked on an optical system and associated software to diagnose and detect in under six hours infections caused by pneumonia and their resistance to antibiotic treatment at Pattern Bioscience in Austin, TX. She also participated in label-free identification of bacterial infections at Dionne Lab at Stanford, and holographic microscopy to study energy exchange in photosynthesis at the Waller Lab at UC Berkeley.
Lena did her undergraduate and master's program in Materials Science and Applied Physics respectively at Stanford and will be applying for admission to the 2022 PhD program. Her research interests include biophotonics, microscopy and optics, and signal processing.
Lena enjoys growing flowers, herbs, and veggies, and practices vermicomposting. She looks forward to learning more about the group’s history and about individual member’s life-experiences. She is excited to join the SF Microscopical Society to learn more about the group’s history and connect with other interdisciplinary microscopists!
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Meet Miranda!
New technology in San Francisco Bay
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By: Anna McGaraghan, SFMS Member
Microscopes come in a huge variety of styles for a wide range of applications. From refrigerator-size scanning electron microscopes to mini field scopes, there are many ways to view the tiny world around us. One of the newest types of microscopes to join the club belongs to Dr. Raphael Kudela’s ocean science lab at UCSC, and is an autonomous, robotic microscope named Miranda. Miranda can currently be found in a shed at the end of the Exploratorium’s pier in San Francisco, sampling seawater from the bay beneath her.
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Social Media Spotlight
SFMS Instagram: Microscopes for Space Exploration - May 29, 2021
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Bellies full, minds blown. Over 100 viewers tuned in from near and far, as SFMS dished up some amazing food-for-thought during the Society’s first-ever virtual event, Microscopes for Space Exploration. Photo credit: Anna McGaraghan
Some of our youngest viewers had their minds blown by micrometeorites at San Francisco Microscopical Society’s first virtual event on May 29, 2021. The event? Microscopes For Space Exploration. We hosted Scott Peterson talking about micrometeorites & Jay Nadeau & Chris Lindensmith talking about holographic microscopes for detecting life on other planets. Miss the event? Watch the recorded event on YouTube. Check out the original Instagram post.
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Insects Images
The Amazon rainforest in South America is a reservoir of species that have yet to be discovered and described. The insects in the forest canopy have been studied by climbing trees, creating temporary platforms, and building towers reaching 131 feet (40 meters) from the ground. Read more...
More on Micrometeorites
Microscopists can collect micrometeorites from their roof gutters and even from the curbs of their streets if they have a strong magnet. This space dust rains down on our earth and gets easily mixed with all other debris so your magnet will pick up a vast assortment of metal particles. Read more...
Geological Microscopy finds a way forward
As mentioned in this issue’s Member Perspective, COVID cut off many researchers from access to their labs and to the microscopes they rely on for teaching and research - inspiring adaptations with profound and lasting accessibility implications. When Alex Steiner, a doctoral student at Michigan State University, found himself and his two undergraduate student colleagues cut off in this way, no longer able to analyze thin slivers of geological material, he created PiAutoStage, a device that takes pictures of entire thin section of the slivers and stitches them together for remote analysis. Read more...
… and 5,000 tardigrades find their way UP
The tardigrade, an oft-beloved subject of microscopists, is making space news headlines once more, as 5,000 of them were launched on June 3, 2021 as part of a SpaceX resupply mission to the International Space Station. Once aboard (and rehydrated), the tardigrades will be used to better understand the effects of the space environment and corresponding mitigation strategies. Read more...
Got News? Please send it to us via email. |
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Member Perspective
Oculars Wide Open: The Power of Live-sharing Our Microscopical Views
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Photo credit: Caren Quay
By: Jenny Jacox, SFMS MicroNews Co-Editor
In the little town of Muir Beach, California, there is a mailman who, despite servicing a town with the word “beach” in its name, has never been down to a tidepool. I met this mailman while I was out on a run – which is when I meet so many people that I never forget. I was jogging toward ‘the bench’ – a bench splintered and rotting but humbly presiding over a 180-degree view of Bolinas Bay, Duxbury Reef, and the Pacific Ocean – when I passed by and waved hello to a tired but smiling middle-aged man who, as it turned out, was covering a postal shift for the local mailman. A few minutes later he pulled up alongside me. “Is there an ocean view this way?” Well, yes. Only the view I grew up gazing at for hours. The one that in large part inspired me to become an oceanographer.
We both ended up there at the bench – not sitting, but standing 6-feet apart and talking through masks necessitated by the COVID pandemic – and it was then that he wondered about the reef he could now see below us. He had never been down to see anything like it up-close. He couldn’t imagine doing that.
Lately I’ve been thinking about that mailman, but also about the high school kids from East Oakland, whom I mentored through the ¡Youth & Oceans! (¡YO!) program, at UC Santa Cruz. The program transported minority, inner-city high school students to the ocean’s edge, where we engaged them for a week in marine observation and experimentation. While cleaning up one day mid-week, I discovered that my student team had placed protective Post-It notes all around the experiment they had spent the day designing. I still have those notes (“DO NOT TOUCH!” “Experiment in progress!”, “GO AWAY!”). “Students participating in such programmes [as ¡YO!] develop a deeper understanding of the nature and practices of science than they do in school settings, gain access to valuable information about educational trajectories and the college experience, and may even reduce the effects of stereotype threat by developing a sense of agency in science. In addition to developing STEM interests and skills, students also developed feelings of shared responsibility and stewardship for the ocean and ocean life, both within themselves and their family.” (Fauville et. al., 2008). Indeed!
Sadly, the students mentored through ¡YO! were only a lucky few. Our public schools are ill-funded, and programs like ¡YO! are rare. Let us remember the more typical story of students attending schools that cannot afford science teachers, let alone school bus trips to the ocean. To say nothing of microscopes. There is a very current, very real, very emergent isolation from science on both the macro and micro scales.
But now, here we are, learning in the age of COVID and all of us more learned in what it is to be isolated. Isolated from each other, and from our places of learning. Our classrooms, our laboratories. The pandemic exposed brutal inequities; there were also niches in where it served to equalize. Suddenly, it was all of us, not just inner-city youth, that found ourselves cut-off from access to wet labs and microscopes.
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Join the San Francisco Microscopical Society
It only costs $12/year to join!
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Who We Are
The San Francisco Microscopical Society (SFMS) dates back to 1870-72 when it was founded. While SFMS was founded in service to the nine Bay Area counties, today we proudly strive to expand our national and international membership. All are welcome as members, and we look forward to connecting through microscopy.
For the past fifteen or more years, SFMS has been based at the Randall Museum in San Francisco and also held meetings at Merritt College in Oakland. As of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SFMS meetings and events are held virtually.
Meetings of the Board are held four times each year, and are open to all SFMS Members. Elections for Board Members are held at the January General Membership meeting where attending Members may vote. Please read SFMS emails or visit our website for more detailed information.
The Society’s Newsletter is published electronically four times each year: March/Spring, June/Summer, September/Autumn, and December/Winter. The Newsletter intends to engage SFMS members through messaging from the Board, the sharing of microscopy use and images, and the publication of articles and perspectives. The Newsletter also serves to build awareness of SFMS news, activities, and events.
Be a reporter by submitting an article. What did you do with your microscope lately? Please help by sharing any material of interest via email or by posting to our newsletter channel in Slack.
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