Approximately 145 million: That's the number of specimens—including plants, animals, minerals, and human artifacts—curators estimate are held in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Victorians were also fascinated by Egyptian mummies. They were collected avidly and even unwrapped at events. Not surprisingly, mummies also found their way under the microscope. These slides contain, ...

When we look at biological cells under a microscope, they’re usually not very colourful. Normally, to visualise them we have to artificially add colour — typically by staining. By doing so, we can see ...

1) Microscope slides and coverglass are used in many parts of the lab while knowledge of how these items are made and the technical properties they have is limited. 2) By not understanding the ...

The Museum has around 2.5 million microscope slides in its collections, which are either vertically or horizontally stored. The Digital Collections Programme has developed a slide digitisation ...

Turn the coarse focus so that the stage is as close to the objective lens as possible. You should not look through the microscope to do this. Place the microscope slide – either one you have prepared, ...