Appreciating the Process of Distinguishing Organelles

Question 1

When looking at a prepared sample (e.g. a cell or a group of cells) under a microscope, you can sometimes see things that aren’t actually part of the specimen
These are known as

Answer 1

artefacts

Question 2

Artefacts can be a variety of things, such as:

Answer 2

dust
air bubbles
fingerprints

Question 3

These artefacts often occur during the preparation of a sample how does this occur

Answer 3

During preparation, a sample is often squashed or stained, which can generate artefacts

The occurrence of artefacts can be decreased by more careful preparation of samples

Question 4

Artefacts are common in which microscope and why

Answer 4

Artefacts are common in electron micrographs (especially in samples prepared for viewing using a transmission electron microscope) due to the lengthy treatment required to prepare samples

Question 5

This was particularly problematic for early research by scientists using the first electron microscopes

Answer 5

To distinguish between artefacts and organelles, they had to repeatedly prepare a specimen in different ways, using different techniques

If they saw a particular object in a specimen prepared using one preparation technique, but not another, the object was more likely to be an artefact than an organelle