The Miniature Laboratory

There are tiny vials and jars, miniature instruments and test tubes, alembics and beakers.

   

And miniature microscopes and slides…

  

The miniature slides are made from actual slides of microbiological specimens, then reduced to the size of the moon on your fingernail and printed onto film and carefully cut out.  These are the slides before they have been reduced and trasnfered to film:

We have wondered why bacteria look so much like Cheetos, and the shapes of some viruses look like hard candies.  Science suggests things are not what they seem, so we have to look a bit harder to understand what it means…

Bacteria:

Viruses:

Then tiny boxes made of balsa wood are made to hold the miniature slides.

We fill the very tiny bottles and vials with substances that only look like the chemicals—trying hard to get the best color and texture according to our master chemistry chart.  We have raided the spice cupboard in doing so, and also made our own crystals from a kit.  Then we cut out very tiny labels and attach them to the bottles!

   

Now they are ready to go into the tiny cabinets!