LC-PolScope Crane Fly Spermatocytes (IMAGE)

Marine Biological Laboratory

LC-PolScope Crane Fly Spermatocytes

Caption

These are spermatocytes from the crane fly, Nephrotoma suturalis. This image was generated using a Nikon Microphot SA equipped with a liquid crystal universal compensator, a so-called LC-PolScope (Cambridge Research and Instrumentation, Woburn MA). With the LC-PolScope, birefringence of meiotic spindles is revealed with striking contrast, regardless of specimen orientation, and thus, the spindle fibers, actually bundles of microtubules, are clearly imaged as bright structures on the non-birefringent (or weakly birefringent) background cytoplasm.

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Rudolf Oldenbourg/MBL

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