Read the latest Issue
Sleeping beauty
Like caterpillars turning into beautiful butterflies, fruit fly larvae have to go through metamorphosis to finish their development. However, despite the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster being one of the best studied model organisms in biology, comparatively little attention has been given to this crucial developmental stage.
Dimitri Kromm and Tatjana Schneidt from the Hufnagel group at EMBL Heidelberg used a home-built multi-view light-sheet microscope with 10× magnification to produce these images of a living fruit fly pupa. By observing the pupa for many hours inside the microscope, scientists can study its metamorphosis.
For this recording, a fluorescent nuclear marker (left) and a membrane marker (right) were expressed in the insect to highlight the individual parts. In the central panel, images of both markers have been overlaid.
Credit: Dimitri Kromm & Tatjana Schneidt/EMBL
If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it here.
