Peek Inside These Crazy Things You Never Thought About!

Turns out, even serious science folks are in on this fun. At Nottingham University, they launched a project in 2023 called "Under the Microscope" where they basically let everyday people pick what gets a super close-up electron microscope look each month. Sneaky, right?

"Why guess what people wanna see? Let’s just ask!" says Luke Norman, the brain behind it all. So yeah, images of all sorts of crazy things popping up online to wow us all.

What’s this electron microscopy thing? Basically, they shoot electrons at stuff and catch the bounces to see crazy tiny surface details - way beyond what regular light microscopes can do. They can zoom in up to a million times, which means even stuff you think you know turns into the ultimate freaky close-up.

It’s like leaves and sand suddenly looking like alien landscapes. Weird and awesome.

Since kicking off in March 2023, they've zoomed into all sorts of everyday items - from lizard scales to gluten-free bread and even a dusty old 14th-century manuscript with some tiny little critters living on it! The public picks what to stare at next, so it’s always a surprise.

People love shouting "Whoa!" and "That’s so weird!" which is exactly what Luke wants - getting us all excited about science and tiny things.

In the UK, around 9.4 million people work in STEM fields (science, tech, engineering, math), and as much as we love these fields, many companies find it tough to find folks with the right skills.

Projects like this help get more folks pumped about science, and hey, who wouldn’t want to know a bit more about the tiny stuff that makes up our big world?

A big worldwide survey of almost 72,000 people found most folks think scientists are smart, honest, and care about us - which is nice to hear!

Most people also want scientists to chat more with us regular humans, but they’re not always sure that happens enough. Maybe if we keep getting cool peeks behind the scenes like this, we’ll all be more into it.