Month: September 2016

1. In order to set up a microscope, you will firstly need your specimen.In the case that you have a light microscope, you will be needing to plug it in so the light may emit the light necessary in order to look at the specimen. The chemical necessary in order to see the specimen so that it will not be contaminated is to add a few drops of immersion oil. Then you adjust the knobs to suit your pleasure of how you want to study the cell.

2.Microscopes are useful in studying biology, in particular cell biology because you can study the use of cells and you can study the organelles of them.

3.The difference between magnification and resolution is that magnification is by how much an image is magnified, i.e how much bigger it appears to be when studying it. The resolution is the clarity of an image, technically, how many pixels per inch.

a. One advantage of using a light microscope is that it is inexpensive which is why it is present in most laboratories. Another advantage is that it produces colour images for a more accurate display of the cell. A disadvantage is that they can only magnify up to 1000x. It can also not be used to view anything smaller than 1 nanometre.

b. One advantage of using an electron microscope is that it has a much higher magnification than a light microscope. It may magnify up to two million times the size of the actual object. It also uses electrons to create an image of what is being seen, making it more reliable. One disadvantage is that it is extremely expensive. Furthermore, so is it sometimes necessary to coat the specimen with a layer of gold.

4.Prokaryotic cells are cells which lack organelles. This means that they lack a nucleus, however, they still have one piece of chromosome so they can continue to asexually reproduce. Eukaryotic cells, by definition, are cells which HAS a nucleus and has all of their organelles inside their membrane.

5. Prokaryotic cells and eukaryotic cells differ in structure and function. For example, prokaryotic cells do not have a nucleus. Prokaryotic cells are also single cell organisms that have no organelles whilst eukaryotic cells have organelles

‘Explain how lichens are environmental indicators’

Due to lichens being sensitive to environmental changes and disturbances it is a good environmental indicator. An environmental indicator is something which tell us of what’s happening in the environment, for example lichens reacting with air pollution. If they are exposed to air pollution, especially bushy ones, they can stop growing and die. This means that scientists may use them to study pollution levels in different areas by observing how lichens cope.