Bacteria glass art panel Microbiology desk decor

A new addition to my Science collection! This glass art panel, made of fused glass, was a retirement gift for a dear colleague of mine 😊 Inspired by the microscopic visual appearance of various bacteria 🔬and infused with my artistic interpretation of how microbes might appear in different colors.

 To see more of my Science collection click here

Gram stained bacteria glass art panel Microbiology desk decor

A new addition to my Science collection! This one was a custom order for a Microbiology lover! A cool  glass art panel made of fused glass, inspired by the different types of Gram stained bacteria visualized under the microscope 🥰 

 To see more of my Science collection click here

 

Cyanobacteria - Asymmetric contemporary oxidized sterling silver necklace with Green Agate for your favorite Geek Chic

I’ve been thinking about making an addition to my Microbiology collection for some time now… This time I got inspired by Cyanobacteria (also known as blue-green algae and blue-green bacteria). They are probably best known for the extensive and highly visible blooms that can form in both freshwater and marine environment and can have the appearance of blue-green paint or scum. Because these blooms are toxic, it is common to close the affected beaches and thus many people get really upset with these little bacteria:) So it may surprise you that the cyanobacteria are actually one of the largest and most important groups of bacteria on earth.

…just a little bit of mandatory nerd (= science) talk now :)

Cyanobacteria are aquatic and photosynthetic, which means, they live in the water, and can manufacture their own food. Because they are bacteria, they are quite small and usually unicellular, though they often grow in colonies large enough to see. They are the oldest known fossils, more than 3.5 billion years old, in fact!

Many oil deposits are attributed to the activity of cyanobacteria. The oxygen atmosphere that we depend on was generated by numerous cyanobacteria during the Archaean and Proterozoic Eras. Prior to that, the atmosphere was unsuitable for life as we know it today.

Another great contribution of the cyanobacteria is the origin of plants. The chloroplast with which plants make food for themselves is actually a cyanobacterium living within the plant's cells. Sometime in the late Proterozoic, or in the early Cambrian, cyanobacteria began to take up residence within certain eukaryote cells, making food for the eukaryote host in return for a home.

So here is my new Cyanobacteria necklace, and for those who do not care about science as much as I do, a simple pretty abstract neck piece :)

 

 

As you've probably guessed these last pictures are microscope shots of the Cyanobacteria colonies and my visual inspiration :)

Rabies virus - Modern Oxidized Sterling Silver pendant with Garnet for your favorite Geek Chic - MSOE monthly challenge "Louis Pasteur"

So the New Year has passed and I’ve been busy busy busy bee :) Two challenges, one vacation, Huge Holiday and a lot of cases of flue in the family … it was tiring but the challenges and vacation was fun :)

So here comes the first challenge from Mad Scientists of Etsy (MSOE). This month’s challenge was a creation inspired by the theme of "Louis Pasteur".

…just a little bit of nerd (= science) talk now :P

Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease. One of his great achievements was that he created the first vaccine for rabies.

Rabies (From Latin: rabies, "madness, rage, fury") is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in mammals. It is most commonly caused by a bite from an infected animal, but occasionally by other forms of contact. If left untreated in humans it is almost invariably fatal.

...so after a time of consideration I decided to make a pendant shaped like a Rabies virus :) Ta da!

(4 small pics on the right are electron microscope shots of Rabies virus)

S. pneumoniae bacteria asymmetric necklace - rock crystal clear Quartz oxidized sterling silver - "Microbiology" monthly challenge

I have just joined the coolest team ever on Etsy! (apart from my EST team of course :) It is called "Mad Scientists of Etsy (MSOE)" and most of their members are scientists who posses an artistic dominant gene :) Yay, I'm not alone!

This month’s challenge was a creation inspired by the theme of "Microbiology", how cool is that! My master thesis project was about S. pneumoniae (Streptococcus pneumoniae) bacteria, so I felt that this could be a perfect opportunity to show them in artistic way :)

Warning! Science talk now... :)

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a normal inhabitant of the human upper respiratory tract. S. pneumoniae can cause pneumonia, as well as infections in other parts of the body such as in the bloodstream (bacteremia), lining of the brain and spinal cord (meningitis), bones (osteomyelitis), joints (arthritis), ears (otitis media) and sinuses (sinusitis). Usually, they are seen as pairs of cocci (spherical or spheroid shape), but they may also occur singly and in short chains. The primary virulence factor (or in other words the ability of a microbe to cause disease) of pneumococci is their polysaccharide capsule (which can be seen as a "halo" around the cells on the last pic). It is non-toxic but helps bacteria to evade the host immune cells.