Sainsbury Laboratory
Both conventional and cryo Scanning Electron Microscopy is carried on a Zeiss EVO HD15 that is equipped with various detectors. Preserved or dried material can be first coated with Gold using the Safematic CCU-010 and imaged in high vacuum. Fresh (hydrated) material can be rapidly frozen in nitrogen slush, cryo fractured and coated with either Gold/Palladium, Platinum or Iridium and imaged on the cryo-stage in the SEM chamber.
Mechanical buckling of petals produces iridescent patterns visible to bees
14 September 2021
Flowers are employing a materials science phenomenon typically associated with failures in structural engineering to produce exquisite three-dimensional petal patterns to lure pollinators.
Renske Vroomans to lead plant evo-devo research at SLCU
10 September 2021
Dr Renske Vroomans has been appointed to the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) to lead research into the evolutionary dynamics of developmental processes in plants.
Blushing plants reveal when fungi are growing in their roots
23 July 2021
Scientists have created plants whose cells and tissues ‘blush’ with beetroot pigments when they are colonised by fungi that help them take up nutrients from the soil.
Sainsbury Laboratory
University of Cambridge
47 Bateman Street,
Cambridge CB2 1LR
United Kingdom
Telephone: 01223 761100
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