San Francisco Microscopical Society

January 2021 (Volume 15, #4)

SFMS Board Meeting 

December 28, 2020, Zoom Meeting at 3:00 PM
These unofficial minutes were prepared by H. Schott.

Present: Henry Fabian, President; Taylor Bell, Vice President; Myron Chan, Treasurer; Theresa Halula*, Recording Secretary. (*Through an oversight, the secretary was not admitted to the discussion until near the end of the meeting.)
Meetings of the Board are open to all members of the society. Requests to attend Zoom meetings must be directed to President Hank Fabian prior to the meeting. HFabian@Peralta.edu
Guests: Ariel Waldman, Henry Schott, editor-Micro News, Mario Gabiati, Education Consultant

The meeting started at 3:10 PM. President Fabian distributed an agenda and asked for discussion on the following:
Meeting days and times (Hank Fabian): The consensus was that 3:00 PM was a good time for Zoom meetings.

News letter:  Micro News (Henry Schott) While I have had difficulty getting the Micro News in shape because of delays and personal issues, I have received an article from Taylor Bell. Hank Fabian then said that he was preparing a statement. Henry was asked to comment on enlarging the board. (See later).

Website: (Ariel Waldman) The website is now fully functioning and the number of visitors have been quite extensive including some from overseas. Ariel believes that as other organizations reference us on their web sites, we will begin to see applications for membership.  www.SFMICROSOC.ORG
New membership drive report (Hank Fabian) While we have not yet initiated a membership drive, as our programs that will be advertised as Webinars become effective, we will attract new members. Henry suggested that we need one board member to devote energy to recruiting and building membership.

Webinars for 2021 (Hank Fabian) Hank mentioned that he would get in touch with a speaker that we had scheduled for 2019. He also offered his lecture (Deductive Tissue Study) as a potential Webinar. Ariel has several You-Tubes. Taylor suggested Derrick de Leong, a Merritt College instructor who can speak on Microscopy of Material Science. Nathan Peabody, another Merritt College instructor was also mentioned as a possible Webinar leader. Ariel mentioned Holographic Microscopy promoted by holographic microscopy lab is run by Jay Nadeau at Portland State.  https://motility.research.pdx.edu/. Hank identified Edwin Berlin who has produced a video of the Morula stage of development. Taylor suggested that we contact vendors of microscopes for presentations of their latest products.

New Business
Lending Microscopes: We need to develop an effective Microscope Lending Service. Ariel mentioned Boli microscopes. We need to contact a foundation that does this for medical-grade microscopes.
Introduction of Mario Gabiati: https://www.mariogabiati.com/  Mario is an educational consultant with a degree in marine biology and wide experience in bringing science to students. He made his presentation with his young son, Able, on his lap. He has worked with Counterculture Lab and is now director of a ‘maker space’ lab at 8000 Edgewater in the Circuit Launch building where 3,000 square feet are being developed to provide tools for people who need to try out concepts. He will be the “mentor” in charge. We could house microscopes there. He can be reached at Info@mariogabiati.com
Election of Officers. Elections will be held in January 8, 2021, and voting is open to all members of SFMS in good standing. Dues for 2021 are now due. Send $12.- for 2021 or $24 for a two- year membership through December 2022 to SFMS Treasurer, 435 Melrose Ave, San Francisco, CA 94127. Life membership is $144.-. Please do not delay renewing your membership; do it today. 
The president sent out the following message to all members on Dec. 29, 2020:
Dear SFMS members:
We will hold our election for 2021 on January 8, 2020 at 3 PM. I will send you an invitation to this zoom meeting closer to the time.
We could use your help! If you have experience in financial accounting at any scale, or if you pride yourself on taking meeting notes that help keep a group organized, please do reply to this email. We are looking for a Treasurer and a Recording Secretary to join our small volunteer non-profit organization. Alternatively, if you’d like to actively contribute to the organizing of the SF Microscopical Society generally, we have a limited number of non-voting Board positions available for those wanting to volunteer but are unsure where to start. Please REPLY NO LATER THAN JANUARY 3 to hfabian@peralta.edu so that we can discuss adding you to the ballot. We will vote via Survey Monkey. I will send this out to you a few days prior to the January 8th meeting.
Thanks so much for being a member of SFMS. I trust all of us will have a better year in 2021.
Wishing you the best,     Hank Fabian 

The board passed a motion to add several non-voting board members to the board. The SFMS Constitution determines who shall be the voting members. If you are interested to serve on the SFMS board, please contact H. Fabian, President. Hfabian@peralta.edu
The meeting was adjourned at 4:37 PM.  The next meeting will take place January 8, 2021, at 3 PM. You are invited to attend the Zoom meeting and will receive information through e-mail.
Ancillary Information.
IndieBio: has 4574 followers on LinkedIn. They enable the best scientists to become entrepreneurs and build some of the world's leading breakthrough companies.
BioCurious is a community biology laboratory and nonprofit organization located in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, California, co-founded by Eri Gentry, Kristina Hathaway, etc....
Curious about biology? Come to a meetup to find other like-minded folk! BioCurious is a completely member-based, non-profit community laboratory providing lab space and classes to anyone from any background. Current programs: Kombucha Genomics, Dec 29 - Dec 30;  Weekly BioCurious-CCL Jan 2, 2021; Synthetic Biology, Jan 4, 2021.   www.crunchbase.com

UCLA News

UCLA researchers' smartphone 'microscope' can detect a single virus, nanoparticles. By Bill Kisliuk, September 16, 2013
Your smartphone now can see what the naked eye cannot: A single virus and bits of material less than one-thousandth of the width of a human hair.

Aydogan Ozcan, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and his team have created a portable smartphone attachment that can be used to perform sophisticated field testing to detect viruses and bacteria without the need for bulky and expensive microscopes and lab equipment. The device weighs less than half a pound.

"This cellphone-based imaging platform could be used for specific and sensitive detection of sub-wavelength objects, including bacteria and viruses and therefore could enable the practice of nanotechnology and biomedical testing in field settings and even in remote and resource-limited environments," Ozcan said. "These results also constitute the first time that single nanoparticles and viruses have been detected using a cellphone-based, field-portable imaging system."

The new research, published on Sept. 9 in the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Nano, comes on the heels of Ozcan's other recent inventions, including a cellphone camera–enabled sensor for allergens in food products and a smart phone attachment that can conduct common kidney tests.

In the ACS Nano paper, Ozcan details a fluorescent microscope device fabricated by a 3-D printer that contains a color filter, an external lens and a laser diode. The diode illuminates fluid or solid samples at a steep angle of roughly 75 degrees. This oblique illumination avoids detection of scattered light that would otherwise interfere with the intended fluorescent image. Ozcan's team was able to detect single human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) particles. HCMV is a common virus that can cause birth defects such as deafness and brain damage and can hasten the death of adults who have received organ implants, who are infected with the HIV virus or whose immune systems otherwise have been weakened. A single HCMV particle measures about 150–300 nanometers; a human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers thick.

Wikipedia Information on Vaccines as of December 2020 and More...

By mid-December 2020, 57 vaccine candidates were in clinical research, including 40 in  Phase I–II trials  and 17 in  Phase II–III trials. In Phase III trials, several COVID-19 vaccines demonstrated  efficacy  as high as 95% in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections.[1]  National health agencies have approved five vaccines for public use, including  Tozinameran  from Pfizer–BioNTech, BBIBP-CorV  by Sinopharm,  CoronaVac  by Sinovac,  mRNA-1273  by Moderna, and Gam-COVID-Vac  by  Gamaleya Research Institute.

Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca predicted a manufacturing capacity of 5.3  billion doses in 2021, which could be used to vaccinate about 3  billion people (as the vaccines require two doses for a protective effect against COVID-19). By December, more than 10 billion vaccine doses had been preordered by countries,[2]  with about half of the doses purchased by  high-income countries comprising only 14% of the world's population.[3] Many countries have implemented phased distribution plans that prioritize those at highest risk of complications such as the elderly and those at high risk of exposure and transmission such as healthcare workers.[4]

Preordering is not the same as delivery. Delivery of millions of doses is occurring but there are a thousand million in a billion and that is a very big number. You have not earned a billion pennies even if you have worked 50 years at $50,000.-/year. That would be only 250 million pennies. The world population is currently over 7.5 billion people and if they need two doses, we will need not only 15 billion doses but also that many syringes and needles and Band-Aids and alcohol swabs and a vast army of trained people to administer the vaccine. It will take time.


A corona virus image with false colors probably from the NY Times as transferred from the Face Book pictures of our former president. While the image is very nice, it does not provide any essential information about the clubs, here colored red. Each club has three sites to form a bond with a protein found on epithelium and other cells. The stem of the club is hinged instead of ridged so that several clubs can bond with the epithelial membrane proteins. After bonding, the virus is drawn into the cell by forming a membrane bound vacuole that eventually or rapidly releases RNA to take over the cells machinery to construct many more viruses. These are released into the extracellular environment when the cell disintegrates thus infecting many more cells. Because serology tests are not perfect, it is important to continue to follow evidence-based steps regardless of antibody test results to prevent infection.
• Keep physical distance – at least 6 feet or more from others not of your household.
• Wear a cloth face covering when you must go out in public.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, for at least 20 seconds.
• Monitor yourself and your family for COVID-19 symptoms
 

PHOTOSYNTHESIS AND THE DIATOMS OF THE GREAT LAKES 

I feel indebted to the great magazines that are available to us and occasionally like to bring interesting articles or issues to your attention. Since you are interested in all that is microscopic, let me encourage you to seek out the December issue of the National Geographic where in the article So Great, So Fragile that provides a lot of information about the Great Lakes the following is of interest where Andrew Bramburger is quoted:

“Everyone calls the Amazon rainforest the lungs of the world,” he said.” But it’s actually the diatoms in the ocean, rivers, and lakes of the world that make about half of the oxygen in our atmosphere.”…Bramburger opened his laptop to show me images of some of Lake Superior’s smallest inhabitants. Researchers have identified about 3,000 species of diatoms in the Great Lakes, and there are probably many more to be discovered. Seen under the microscope, they’re among the most strangely beautiful of all living things, with a kaleidoscope variety of shapes – rococo orbs, striated lozenges, splayed fans, disks patterned like the rose windows in a Gothic cathedral. Like plants, diatoms and other algae use light to convert water and carbon dioxide into simple carbohydrates. They’re high-quality food for the zooplankton—minute, floating grazers—“juicy and rich in fats,” in Bramburger’s description.

But there are alarming indications that the diatoms in the Great Lakes are becoming smaller and this change seems to relate to climate change. One theory holds that the warming waters of the lakes causes larger diatoms to sink and thus reduces their ability to photosynthesize. This will have a negative effect on the food web reducing nutrients available for the organisms that harvest the diatoms and in turn feed the rest of the food web. 

The article is by Tim Folger and photographs by Keith Ladzinski, page 40-81. National Geographic, December 2020.

THE MONSTER WASP, Vespa mandarinia

Insects are a good study object for thoughtful observation through a disecting microscope. We probably all have done so since they are easy subjects to pin down. None of them were of a size that inspired fear. I even remember, while in graduate school, killing vast numbers of fruit flies as I was required to do in the laboratory of a well-known geneticist. It was not a learning situation, but it helped with my need to raise some cash. 

In evolutionary terms, insects are very successful. New species are found on a regular basis in the jungles and occasionally known species appear on our coasts as imports, arriving as a part of cargo from other lands. Since they can have devastating effects on agricultural crops, a constant effort of trapping and identifying the insect population is carried on by entomologists employed by the government. 

In December 2019, a hornet (Vespa mandarinia) was sighted for the first time near the town of Blain in Washington State. This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill hornet but a real monster with a huge head and the ability to sting through protective clothing such as bee-keeper’s clothing and deliver five times the amount of venom, a neurotoxin. Unlike bees, it can sting repeatedly without losing it injection device.

Known as the “Murder Hornet” in Japan, it normally lives in the forests and low mountains of eastern and southeastern Asia. It is a predator on honeybees and feeds on large insects including wasps. It is a threat to people if they are attacked multiple times. In late summer, the hornets are most destructive, attacking honeybee hives, killing adults and eating the developing larvae and pupae. These two-inch hornets destroy the honeybees that farmers depend upon to pollinate crops such as apples, blueberries and cherries. Eradication measures are being instigated in Washington State.

This report is based on: INSECTS:  MARAUDING ‘MURDER HORNETS’DISCOVERED IN U.S., BY Nicholas K. Geranios, SF Chronicle, Wednesday, May 6, 2020, page A10.

Join the S. F. Microscopical Society

SFMS dates back to 1870-72 when it was founded but as a result of the 1906 earthquake it was disbanded and not revived until the 1950s. It has been active over the past seventy years and has served the wider community of the nine counties during that time. For the past fifteen or more years, our base has been at the Randall Museum in SF. The society also meets occasionally at Merritt College in Oakland. Merritt has a new building for the sciences in which the first floor is devoted to light microscopy and cell culture.

Elections for board members are usually held at the January General Membership meeting where attending members vote. Due to the pandemic, new temporary rules will govern meetings and elections. Please read SFMS  e-mails.

The Society’s newsletter is the Micro News, published four times each year is usually mailed to members but is now being distributed on-line. The newsletter contains information about the upcoming meetings and activities of the board. Members are encouraged to share what they find interesting in microscopy by providing pictures and text relating to microscopy. 

Be a reporter by submitting an article. What did you do with your microscope lately?
Please help by sharing any material of interest with hschott@aol.com, H. Schott, Editor

JOIN THE SOCIETY NOW FOR 2021: