Journey to the Microcosmos

We Filmed Tardigrade Sex!

In our Season 2 debut, we're diving back into the world of our favorite little water bear friends!

The Highs and Lows of Tardigrade Pregnancy

Original Title: Our Tardigrade Had Babies!

Slime Molds: When Micro Becomes Macro

How to Identify Microbes

When there are over one trillion species, it can be hard to determine what you're looking at on your microscope. Thankfu

How Cyanobacteria Took Over The World

Bacillaria: Distractingly Beautiful Crystal Colonies

The Microcosmos of the 1800s - The Story of Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg

How We Find Our Microbes

The Secret Things Living in Your Aquarium

Synura: Smelly, Flowery Confetti

How to Survive the Microcosmos

What Is the Point of Sex?

What Are These Vorticella up To?

Original Title: 12 Minutes in the Life of Vorticella

Water Fleas: Look Weird, Adapt Weirder

Making Decisions Without a Brain

Making decisions can be pretty hard, but imagining trying to do it without a brain!

Peritrich Ciliates: Masters of Long-Range Snacking

The Terrifying Viruses of the Microcosmos

Even in the microcosmos, it's important to stay inside if you want to avoid a virus.

The Micro World Right Under Your Feet

Testate Amoebas: Blobby, Modest Shell Dwellers

A lot of the microbes we show you are completely naked, but the test amoeba is a bit more modest.

Colorless Euglenoids: Structure and Function (and Food)

There’s something you probably heard a lot in biology class. And no, it's not “mitochondria is the powerhouse of the

The Complicated Legacy of Lynn Margulis

The world of microscopy is not without its own controversial figures, today we’re discussing Lynn Margulis and her con

The Microbe You Eat All The Time

Yeast: the most coveted microbe during this pandemic. This week we’re taking a close look at the little guys that make

How to Name a Microbe

There’s a story behind every microbe’s name, and that of the Phacus smulkowskianus is surprisingly sweet.

Preserving the History of the Microcosmos With Prepared Slides

Sometimes, pictures and videos aren’t enough. Sometimes the best way to share what you’ve seen under the microscope

Trying to Make Sense of This Overwhelming World

The goal of phylogenetic trees is to track the organisms we know of through their place in evolution.

We Upgraded Our Microscope!

Differential interference contrast is not a microscope, but rather a method that enhances contrast, and thanks to our ne

How Do Microorganisms Poop?

Everybody poops, but how does one poop when one does not have a butthole?

Flatworms: Simple Wiggly Tubes

Our Paramecia Are Infected

We recently discovered some Holospora infecting one of our Paramecium samples. How does that happen? How does the Holosp

Lacrymaria: Vicious Long-Necked Predators

The Fungus That Traps and Kills Nematodes

Arthrobotrys is a genus of fungi that not only kills nematodes, but it also sets traps in order to catch them!

Ophyroglena: The Tricky Transforming Ciliate

On the surface, Ophyroglena seems like it should be pretty easy to identify, but it all depends on which stage of life i

Can Microbes See Without Eyes?

Do Microscopic Immortals Actually Exist?

Are you immortal if you never age? Defying death is not as clear-cut as it might initially seem. What we define as immor

Water Is Thicker When You’re Smaller

Didinium: The Paramecium Hunter

Some Water Bears Live on Land

The Case of the Mistaken Amoeba

Today we're exploring the intriguing Ouramoeba vorax. Or wait... is it Amoebophilus simplex? Let's figure that out toget

This Ciliate Is About to Die

It's time to explore a big question while we watch a ciliate go through its last moments.

Strange Stentor Stories

Our giant Stentor friends are back with more strange stories about these mysterious giants!

The Schoolteacher Who Discovered 700 Ciliates

Alfred Kahl only spent a decade in the world of the microcosmos, but in that time he discovered more ciliates than anyon

How Did Multicellularity Evolve?

Actinobolina: A Tiny Predatory Porcupine

It may not be the super rare tentacled ciliate we were looking for, but it's still a really cool super rare tentacled ci

Foraminifera: Hard on The Outside, Squishy on the Inside

We're going fossil hunting for Foraminifera! From beaches, to the ocean floor, to the foundation of the Egyptian pyramid

Why Do Bacteria Move Like Vibrating Chaos Snakes?

Bacterial flagella are very hard to spot in our footage, but we see evidence of them in almost every single one of our v

Dinoflagellates: The Algae That Saved an Astronaut

Moss & Lichen: Which One Is Actually a Plant?

Suctorians: The Ugly Duckling of Ciliates

Pelomyxa: The Microbe That's Big Enough to Pet

Can Algae Fuel Our Cars?

As the search for alternative energy sources continues, scientists are looking to the microcosmos and wondering: Can we

How Do Microorganisms Pee?

Becoming Your Own Baby Through Conjugation

Getting to Know Our Single-Celled Ancestors

Your Screen Is Covered In Human Blood

Heliozoa: Round, Sticky, and Covered in Spikes

How Diatoms Build Their Beautiful Shells

Leeuwenhoek: The First Master of Microscopes

The Fantastic Feet of the Microcosmos

The Chaotic Life of Seashore Ciliates

We Found a Super Rare Microbe!

After over three years of searching for it, our Master of Microscopes has found a Spirostomum semivirescens!

Bursaria: Giant Gravity-Sensing Vacuums

The big Roomba of the microcosmos is fascinating to watch as it lives its sink or swim life.

The Diversity of Shapes in the Microcosmos

From trumpets and spirals to floral arrangements, single cell organisms take on many strange and unique shapes. But they

Looking at Tardigrade Sperm and Other Reproducing Swimmers

Original Title: Tardigrade Sperm and Other Reproducing Swimmers Not all hypotheses need to be good. In fact, many of th

Flinching Saves Lives in the Microcosmos

Some Eggs Don't Need Sperm to Make Babies

We Upgraded Our Microscope... Again!

Unsolved Mysteries of the Microcosmos

Sometimes we come across microbes that we just can't learn much about, or that don't fit into a larger story. So, this w

The Beautiful, Brutal Tentacles of Hydra

We Dipped Our Lens in Oil to See More Detail

Oil immersion is an interesting and complex microscopy tool.

The Secret Things Living In Your Drains

Revealing the Hidden Colors of the Microcosmos

These Algae Curl Up Into a Ball When They Get Stressed Out

Where Is This Anemone Really From?

The Gruesome Tale of the Hitchhiking Parasite

The Dark History of Sea Monkeys

What Is Mold and Why Does It Love Bread?

It's time to dive into our collection of spores, molds, and fungus!

Why Do Microbes Explode Under UV Light?

The Purple Bacteria That Are Afraid of Oxygen

“But wait!” you might be saying to yourself. “How can an organism be photosynthetic and so afraid of oxygen? Doesn

Slime Tubes in Search of Sunlight

There are only a few groups of bacteria that do this kind of gliding, but they’re found across a plethora of environme

Journey Through the Body of a Rotifer

Rotifers don’t really get a lot of love when it comes to microscopic animals. At least as far as the public imaginatio

The Fish Sucking Lice That Aren’t Lice

Arugulus sure know how to get under a fish's skin, literally. Fish will actually throw themselves out of the water to g

Tumbling Down Invisible Highways

When we look at bacteria under a microscope, they appear to be tumbling around chaotically, but over the centuries we re

The Arachnid Whose Poop Is Making You Sneeze

Dileptus: The Toxic Micro Elephant With an Insatiable Appetite

Copepods: The Diatom-Devouring King of Plankton

Scientists have observed some copepods eating over 300,000 diatoms in a single day!

Microbes in Slow Motion

While our journeys are often enjoyed at a slow pace, when we go just a little bit slower and look a little bit deeper th

The Tiny Crustacean With the Oldest Penis

Looking for Answers in the Skull of a Zebrafish

Creepy Crawly Close-Ups

Adventures in Being Eaten

The Complicated Relationships of the Microcosmos

The Double Life of a Fake Jellyfish

The Tiny Worlds Inside of Single-Celled Organisms

We often focus on the organisms, but what about the even smaller world inside of them?

Microbe Hunting in Antarctica

Nematodes: The Worm That Sculpted The World

When it comes to the muses of the animal kingdom, the nematode seems like an unlikely well of inspiration, but over the

Aeolosoma: Polka-Dotted Vacuum Worms

Worms, despite their seemingly simple bodies, are a diverse bunch. Which is why we thought that for today, it might be f

What Even Is A Species?

If you know about the species Lacrymaria olor, then you know what you’re getting when you see it under a microscope. I

The Spatula-Shaped Ciliate Family

The family Spathidiidae is made up of around 20 genera, which encompass around 250 known species. And there’s a lot of

Giant Microscopic Cannibals

Every experiment has to start somewhere. This one began with a container full of dying microbes, and the five cute, pink

How Many Cells Are in a Microscopic Animal?

We’re starting this episode out with a question that we’re never going to have a good answer for: how many cells do

The Remarkable Mystery of Land Plants

Somewhere around 470 million years ago, something happened that shouldn’t have been particularly striking. An algae fo

There's More Than Coral at the Coral Farm

When you’re in the business of hunting for microbes, sometimes you have to send some weird emails. That’s why James,

We Finally Found the Elusive Bristle Worm!

We’ve spent most of our journey through the microcosmos seeking out the organisms that are too small to see with just

Putting Coral Under the Microscope

James, our master of microscopes, recently received a package from a coral farm in Germany. We’ve explored some of the

How Brownian Motion Helped Prove the Existence of Atoms

We’re going to see a type of motion over and over again because it’s all over the microcosmos, found in and around m

How to Not Kill an Extremely Rare Microbe

For an activity that mostly involves sitting and staring, microscopy is a surprisingly high stakes task. On the other si

Mouthless Parasites That Make Their Home In Worm Guts

You’ve heard those worm horror stories, right? Stories of painful stomach cramps or diarrhea or nausea that eventually

Can This Baby Rotifer Escape Before It’s Eaten Alive?

This Loxodes magnus is large, so large that it was able to eat a rotifer, those funny animals we often see getting bulli

Bryozoa: Moss Animals That Are Defined by Their Butts

At first glance, they seem a bit more like plants or a series of flowers with thin, elegant petals. But no, they are ind

Getting to the Root of Nitrogen Fixation

James, our master of microscopes, is not a farmer. He is, to put it simply, fascinated by microbes. And that may lead hi

A Two-Headed Ciliate and Other Adorable, Dead, and Extinct Things

The theme of today's episode is pretty simple: things we never thought we’d be showing you, but here we are.

The Aquatic Snails That Leave a Path of Destruction

It’s often said that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. And surely there is no greater proof of that

These Squishy Dots Move So Fast You Might Miss Them

From our vantage point, as relatively large organisms, it can be easy to overlook the microcosmos, because it’s simply

Our Tardigrades Got Stuck in a German Post Office

Tardigrades have been through a lot. They’ve been sent to the moon. They’ve had the moisture sapped out of them. At

These Walking Ciliates Are Frustrating

The ciliates we’re going to talk about today are kind of…frustrating. At this point in our journey, we’ve gotten u

Water Mites: Sticky Dancers with Crystal Poop

The microcosmos might seem like a safe place from a surprise spider attack, but it would be misleading to pretend that i

We Accidentally Grew Crystals

Usually on Journey to the Microcosmos, we spend our time looking at living organisms, things like insects, plants, and m

Ghost Fleas: Tiny See Through Cyclopses

Depending on your love of horror stories or your belief in the supernatural, it might be easy to convince you that lakes

Bacteria That Only Want To Head North

When James first saw these bacteria, all he knew is that they came from a sample taken from a Portuguese beach. And on t

The Shared Doom of Microscopic Hitchhikers

Our oceans and lakes are filled with copepods, a myriad of small crustacean species that might float as plankton or infe

Kentrophoros: The Mouthless Ciliate With a Back Full of Snacks

This is kentrophoros, a ciliate that James—our master of microscopes—had been searching for, receiving samples from

These Rotifers Glue Themselves Together

As animals, we owe a lot to the single-celled organisms that came before us. These are the organisms that laid the chemi

Why Are These Single-Celled Organisms So Large?

Sand Is Full of Life and Death

The 18th Century Tardigrade Debate

Is the Mitochondria Always the Powerhouse of the Cell?

This Extremely Rare Ciliate Has Only Been Seen Four Times

How We Got The DNA From This Extremely Rare Ciliate

A Microscopic Tour Through A Norwegian Fjord

Sometimes our journey through the microcosmos feels like an expedition, a voyage filled with deep dives into the masses

The Illuminating Reason Perenema Curl Up Into a Ball

Watching this Peranema feels a bit like watching a cat waffling back and forth between whether or not it wants to take a

The Collotheca Doesn’t Mind Eating Its Own Babies

Imagine that this is the beginning of the last thing you’ll ever see, an empty landscape with thin lines scratched acr

The Indecisive Evolution of Gastrotrichs

The Gastrotrich has long been a personal favorite microbe of several members of the Journey to the Microcosmos crew. But

How Electricity Brings Order To Chaos

Science is built on questions. So let’s start today with one: what do you think happens when you set off an electrical

The Microcosmos Is Made of Star Stuff

If you’ve been with us on our journey for a while, you’ve probably heard us say the phrase “we don’t know” a l

Your Mouth Is A Cave For Microbes

You may not want to think about it this way, but your mouth is really just one giant, wet cave for microbes. From the pe

Microscopic Space Travelers

This might not look like much. But every day, tiny little things like this are raining down on our planet. Each one is s

These Microbes Wear Chain Mail Made From DNA

The microcosmos is not always a graceful space. Sometimes an organism just needs to get around the way it gets around, e

How Does Yeast Make Bread?

As you’re wandering through the aisles of the grocery store, you might find your attention caught on any number of thi

How Do Microbes Make Decisions?

Microbes are not just blobs. They are very well-evolved biological machinery, the product of eons of evolution that have

How Your Blood Keeps You Alive

Blood is a useful substance, not just for our life, but for our way of thinking. It signifies life, but also accompanies

Can Bacteria Eat Plastic?

Our world today, the one that we have constructed, feels as if it runs on plastic. It is a building block in our bags, o

Lichen: The Mysterious Love Child of Fungi and Algae

A useful principle in the story of life is that you should never underestimate algae or cyanobacteria. They’ll just al

The Microcosmos Is A Very Stressful Place

Do microbes ever feel fear? Or concern? Or trepidation? While they can’t exactly tell us, they probably don’t– at

These Mites Are Probably On Your Face Right Now

You might wonder why we would care if a demodex has a butthole or not. Well, we care because they live on our face.

The Incredible World of Bacterial Communities

These particular little green organisms show up in the background of other organism’s lives, providing pops of color a

The Tube-dwelling Architects Of The Microcosmos

Every time we see diatoms, we have to give it to them: they’re just simply stunning. They’re single-celled and major

How To Kick Off Your Microscopic Journey

One of the most common questions we get asked here on Journey to the Microcosmos comes from all of you who are thinking

Unboxing Our Microcosmos Microscope!

The Complicated Sex Lives of Hydra

If we were to write a fable to get this moral across, it would have to star the freshwater cnidarian called the hydra. B

When Is A Fungus Not A Fungus?

Oomycetes are one of the more unusual-looking microbes we’ve seen in the microcosmos. It looks more like a coral reef

The Cryptic Origins of Yogurt

The microcosmos is home to many unusual partnerships. Life is, after all, just relationships, each of which build upon o

Why Beggiatoa Are Stuffed Full Of Sulfur

There’s a few things that give Beggiatoa away. The first is the simple serpentine shape of their bodies, and the secon

We Don't Know Why Moth Wings Glow

The Complicated Sex Lives of Hydra

If we were to write a fable to get this moral across, it would have to star the freshwater cnidarian called the hydra. B

When Is A Fungus Not A Fungus?

Oomycetes are one of the more unusual-looking microbes we’ve seen in the microcosmos. It looks more like a coral reef

The Cryptic Origins of Yogurt

The microcosmos is home to many unusual partnerships. Life is, after all, just relationships, each of which build upon o

Why Beggiatoa Are Stuffed Full Of Sulfur

There’s a few things that give Beggiatoa away. The first is the simple serpentine shape of their bodies, and the secon

We Don't Know Why Moth Wings Glow

A little while ago, James found himself with a bit of a problem. He was keeping some wheat grains at home to use as food

Avoid These Tiny Bits of Killer Fluff (If You Can)

When you hear the phrase “brain-eating amoebas,” is there a particular image that comes to mind? Whatever you envisi

This Neon World Is Inside Your Fruit

Usually we’re looking into pond water or whatever other fascinating bit of nature that James, our master of microscope

Up Close With The World's Deadliest Animal

Under the microscope, mosquitos undergo a metamorphosis sculpted in gold. The buzzing body takes on a life of its own, i

Falling In Love With Microscopy

This video is all about James, who many of you know as our master of microscopes. He is the scientist, and the artist, b

The Tiny Worlds Inside of Puddles

When was the last time you saw a puddle? Was it recent—perhaps some time in the past week, fresh from a downpour? Or h

Why Are Some Birds Blue?

One of the spectacular details of animals in our world is just how varied their colors can be. When you look at birds, f

The Electric Relationship Between Plants And Bees

When you think of bees, you probably don’t think of single-celled eukaryotes. What could an insect have in common with

Floating Cities of Scum

When you think of bees, you probably don’t think of single-celled eukaryotes. What could an insect have in common with

Liverworts Use The Rain To Make Their Clones

An ambiguously long time ago, there was this theory of medicine. An idea that if you came across a plant that looked lik

Bacteria That Survive In Gelatinous Colonies

In the 1820s, a man named Dr. R. Brandes walked through a meadow on a quest to try and answer a centuries-old question a

Is It Possible To Photosynthesize In The Dark?

Our master of microscopes is always looking for rare ciliates that live in areas low in oxygen. But when he puts those s

This Predator Is A Shape-Shifter

In the middle of the 19th century, a scientist stared into the microscope and found, staring back at him, a vampire.

Blood-Sucking Escape Artists

Of all the animals that we’ve examined in the microcosmos, leeches are probably one of the few that can be used as a v

This Microscopic Killer Wears Its Victims

If you have been following Journey to the Microcosmos for some time, this might sound like a familiar story.| Consider t

These Dancing Worms Are Surprisingly Useful

Some Ciliates Are Hiding a Secret Weapon

Can Microbes Just Appear Out Of Nowhere?

Can life be created spontaneously? Well, a year and a half ago, our master of microscopes, James, was inspired by the id

Trying To Solve Some Micro Mysteries

We Found Some Things We Can't Explain Today's episode has one particular theme: a bunch of funny things going on in the

What Do These Algae Do With Four Genomes?

The History of Red Algae

Imagine that you aren’t watching the microcosmos right now. Instead you’re living in the world as it existed around

These Mites Give Cheese Its Flavor

Why Picocyanobacteria Might Just Outlast All Of Us

In the northeast Atlantic Ocean, plankton populations aren’t looking like they used to. And at the center of it all ar

We Built A Tardigrade Trap, And It Worked

We don’t know if there are many rites of passage institutionalized among amateur microscopists. But we have to imagine

The Microbial Universe That Makes Kombucha

When you think of kombucha, you might think of a nice, refreshing, healthy drink, one that’s exceptionall good for you

This Microbe Hasn't Been Seen Since The 1930s

After an absence of almost 90 years, we’ve found a rare ciliate last written about about in 1933.

What Makes A Microbe Rare?

In the microcosmos—where the organisms vastly outnumber us, where what we find in a single pool of water can change fr

These Tiny Crustaceans Hate Change

One of the fascinating aspects of microscopy is the way you can look so deeply into something that it becomes unrecogniz

This special diatom is having a very bad day

It’s hard to count how many times we’ve encountered diatoms on Journey to the Microcosmos. However, we've always tal

We Fed Our Microbes Blood So You Don't Have To

These Slugs Led Us to the Last Good Place on the Internet

If you were asked to describe what a sea slug is, you might be tempted to go with the straightforward response: it’s a

How Do We Find Cancer?

Usually on Journey to the Microcosmos, we spend our time delving into the microscopic world and the surprising things th

Watch a Stentor Fix Itself

Today James, our master of microscopes, is using a microscopy slide as a cutting board, chopping away at the slide to en

This Amoeba Made Armor From Its Dead Enemies

This amoeba has a shell around it, which seems like a pretty good idea. The world at large is full of predators, and she

We Found Something Strange in Portugal

Sometimes, the microcosmos can take a little while to surprise. You have to be patient, enjoying the familiar sights as

We've Been Looking For This Purple Amoeba for 6 Years!

We know that it’s bad form to return to the same word over and over again here on Journey to the Microcosmos. But when

You Have Something in Common With This Horrifying Tube Worm

When James, our master of microscopes, was looking through samples he’d received from Spain, he didn’t expect to see

Tiny Mysteries from the Black Sea

When you think of mussels and clams and other bivalve animals, you might think of something as shelled and static, perha

We Found a Very, Very Tiny Kraken

Our Master of Microscopes James was fascinated by something he found in some samples he had been given from Portugal. So

How Does The Microcosmos Change With the Seasons?

We Spent a Year Looking at Microbes in a Polish Pond Have you ever wondered what seasons look like to a microbe? How th

Why Are Ciliates So Hairy?

For James, our master of microscopes, the immense breadth has made ciliates a bit of an obsession. Whether he’s huntin

What These Microbes Teach Us About Free Will

We’re focusing today on a Journey to the Microcosmos favorite: the ciliates, the single-celled eukaryotes covered in h

Microscopic Beauty from a Nuclear Test Site

James, our master of microscopes, seems like a tough person to get a gift for. What do you get the person who has the en

Why Do Planarians Have Those Triangles on their Heads?

Flatworms are kind of adorable. And they have keep scientists up at night for a few reasons.

A Collection of Tiny Universes

Whenever we get to watch things through the microscope together, it’s like we’re transported to another world—or m

Some Microbes Also Take Naps

One thing we’ve heard from many of you is that this show is your sleep show, that soothing bit of media you put on whe

We Answer Your Questions!

While our journey through the microcosmos together is soon coming to a close, we know that some of you still have questi

We Spilled Ink On Our Slides to See What Would Happen

Science is about more than just finding immutable laws of nature. It’s about having the imagination to try things and

The Future of Microscopy (and end of our Journey)

People have been staring through the microscope for centuries, peering into the microcosmos and uncovering its beauty as