MDI Biological Laboratory
MDIBL Light Microscopy Facility
This cyberpunk-inspired image gives a colorful twist to the common fruit fly. The vivid purples, pinks and blues transform the tiny Drosophila into a glowing neon specimen, poised amid the wires and circuits of technology. Captured under the microscopic gaze of a confocal lens, the fly’s intricately-patterned wings and light-refracting cuticle radiate an otherworldly brilliance. Like an electric dragonfly, it seems to power the very machine it inhabits. At once beautiful and unsettling, this illuminated insect represents both the natural and the technological – two worlds colliding in a surreal, futuristic landscape.
Sample: Drosophila on a slide, mounted in nail polish
Label: autofluorescence imaged with DAPI, eGFP,568 ANd 647 channels
Instrument: Spinning-disk confocal unit (CSU-W1, Yokogawa, Japan) on a Nikon inverted Ti-Eclipse microscope stand (Nikon Instruments Inc., Japan), equipped with a Nikon Plan Apo λ 4x/0.2NA objective lens
Scale: 5,185 mm X 5,181mm
Image or Sample Processing Steps: Tilling and stitching. Maximum projection of intensities from a z-stack that was 580 um thick, with 20um initial sectioning. LUT were processed with FIJI and enhanced with Photoshop