>
> Emlyn wrote:
>
> > She knows a bit about bacteria. We've talked about cells & other little
> > things too... I'm going to get my hands on a microscope ASAP.
>
> I'd concur with others Emlyn, if you are eductating her about bacteria
> and she understands them at the age of 5, you are doing a great job
> as a parent.
Thanks everyone. Unfortunately, I can't take all the credit I'd like to (I
love credit!). A lot of this is not so much Jodie and I educating her, as
Morgana extracting information from us like a dentist does teeth (somehow
appropriate to this thread). My major goal with parenting Morgana is to make
sure she doesn't end up bitter and twisted; that could be very bad for
humanity...
>
> Regarding getting a microscope, you might want to consider the Intel
> computer microcam, I think it has a microscope "attachment", however
> I'm not sure it would be sufficiently powerful to see bacteria. You
> probably could do yeast which are ~10x bigger or some cyanobacteria
> that you could find in pond water get pretty big. You will need to
> go to 400x perhaps 1000x to see bacteria if I recall correctly.
> Unfortunately, bacteria being around a micron in size are at the limits
> of far-field visible light microscopy because they are only slightly
> larger than the wavelengths in visible light (400-700 nm).
>
> To view bacteria most effectively, they also need to be stained.
> Standard microbiology uses an iodine stain, with an alcohol flush
> followed by a safranin stain to differentiate between gram negative
> and gram positive bacteria (they have different cell wall molecules
> that have different stain affinities).
>
OK, I'd better get some more info on this. I have a science degree, but not
the right kind of sciences; microscopes are almost as new to me as to her.
Sounds like fun, actually!
Thanks very much Robert, and everyone else who replied. I think we'll have
some fun investigating this stuff.
Here's an anecdote that will speak to Robert's condition... Last night, I
was downstairs working and my wife was putting the little guy to bed;
meanwhile, Morgana was watching a show called FAQ on tv, which has panels of
people talking about all kinds of science-related stuff, in a very hip, gen
x kinda way. There's a lot of >H - related content on there actually, my
only quibble is that it's a bit superficial.
Morgana came running in to Jodie, crying. After Jodie managed to calm her
down, Morgana explained that they'd said on the show that the sun was going
to explode and swallow the earth in 5 billion years. She was terrified! She
woke up in the night with nightmares about it.
So today, I'm expounding at length on visions of colonising the stars,
jupiter brains, and all the rest. Also, we took some time to discuss just
how long 5 billion years is, finding out that we have a little time up our
sleeve after all.
Still, she takes the threat seriously. When she found out about death, about
a year ago or more I think, I told her about life extension and what I think
will be happening in her life time, which she was very happy with. Since
then, she's been ruminating on that a lot. She told me this morning that
we'd probably be dead before the sun explodes, but we might not be.
Emlyn
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