Gonyaulax Polyedra

Another experiment at the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss, Germany. This time an experiment in bioluminescence. I observed
the Gonyaulax Polyedra, a bioluminescent dinoflagellate. As you can (or cannot) see, they are very small. On the picture they show up as these little brownish things. They have a very interesting behaviour of respond to vibration with the emission of burst of light. Another fascinating thing is that they behave like firefly flashing light in synchrony.



Here is a scanning electron micrograph image from
J. Woodland Hastings Research Group Harvard University



…and this video shows their response to vibration. Listen to the sound.



I put two bottles of Gonyaulax Polyedra inside a dark chamber as shown below, so that the two groups could see each other. In another experiment I used a piece of black paper to block visual contact between then. I wanted to see how lack of visual contact affect their synchronous behaviour. Te bottles are made of quartz glass that allows UV transmission.



Here the video

Imaging light of plants

These are pictures from the experiment I performed at the International Institute of Biophysics in Neuss, Germany last month. It was an experiment in delay luminescence, a phenomenon known as photon emission by living systems after stimulation by visible radiation. The green pictures are screenings of light emitted by living plants. The equipment used in this experiment consisted of a CCD camera integrated to a multi-channel plate (MCP) and a dark chamber. Living organisms are put inside the chamber in order to be imaged. When photons are emitted by the plant they are captured by the MCP and registered on a CCD camera. The final picture is shown on a computer monitor.

More images at Flickr

When the red light is on, the chamber's interior is illuminated by a little white LED. The plant absorb this light an emit it back. This is called delay luminescence.