About this season
Take a dive into the tiny, unseen world that surrounds us! With music by Andrew Huang, footage from James Weiss, and narration by Hank Green, we want to take you on a fascinating, reflective journey through the microcosmos.
Episodes (53)
1. The Complicated Sex Lives of Hydra
Aired 29 May 2023 • 12 min
If we were to write a fable to get this moral across, it would have to star the freshwater cnidarian called the hydra. Because in the hydra, the question of butts connects to the ambiguities of immortality, which in turn relates to the befuddling matter of sexual reproduction.
2. When Is A Fungus Not A Fungus?
Aired 5 June 2023 • 11 min
Oomycetes are one of the more unusual-looking microbes we’ve seen in the microcosmos. It looks more like a coral reef painted by an artist inspired by Gustav Klimt and a pile of trash. And if you saw that painting hanging in the museum, you might pass it by without thinking much of its subject.
3. The Cryptic Origins of Yogurt
Aired 12 June 2023 • 10 min
The microcosmos is home to many unusual partnerships. Life is, after all, just relationships, each of which build upon one another like strokes of paint in an epic tableau of ecology, epidemics, and yogurt?
4. Why Beggiatoa Are Stuffed Full Of Sulfur
Aired 19 June 2023 • 10 min
There’s a few things that give Beggiatoa away. The first is the simple serpentine shape of their bodies, and the second are those little dots inside of them. They look like bubbles, but they’re actually sulfur granules.
5. We Don't Know Why Moth Wings Glow
Aired 10 July 2023 • 10 min
A little while ago, James found himself with a bit of a problem. He was keeping some wheat grains at home to use as food for the microbes that he cultures and films for our enjoyment. But before he could feed the grains to his microbes, they became infested with the larvae.. of moths.
6. Avoid These Tiny Bits of Killer Fluff (If You Can)
Aired 17 July 2023 • 11 min
When you hear the phrase “brain-eating amoebas,” is there a particular image that comes to mind? Whatever you envision, it's probably not what the notorious brain-eating amoeba that strikes fear in our hearts actually looks like.
7. This Neon World Is Inside Your Fruit
Aired 24 July 2023 • 11 min
Usually we’re looking into pond water or whatever other fascinating bit of nature that James, our master of microscopes, usually looks at. But right now, our sights are coming to us directly from the kitchen and from a different master of microscopes.
8. Up Close With The World's Deadliest Animal
Aired 31 July 2023 • 9 min
Under the microscope, mosquitos undergo a metamorphosis sculpted in gold. The buzzing body takes on a life of its own, its usual role as menace lying far beyond the margins of the screen.
9. Falling In Love With Microscopy
Aired 7 August 2023 • 12 min
This video is all about James, who many of you know as our master of microscopes. He is the scientist, and the artist, behind just about everything we are able to see in our collective journey through the microcosmos.
10. The Tiny Worlds Inside of Puddles
Aired 14 August 2023 • 7 min
When was the last time you saw a puddle? Was it recent—perhaps some time in the past week, fresh from a downpour? Or has it been a long time since you’ve seen rain, and so an even longer time since your path has crossed a puddle?
11. Why Are Some Birds Blue?
Aired 21 August 2023 • 9 min
One of the spectacular details of animals in our world is just how varied their colors can be. When you look at birds, for example, you’ll see everything from mundane grays to iridescent blues. So why don’t we shine with the same iridescence of birds?
12. The Electric Relationship Between Plants And Bees
Aired 28 August 2023 • 8 min
When you think of bees, you probably don’t think of single-celled eukaryotes. What could an insect have in common with, say, a ciliate?
13. Floating Cities of Scum
Aired 4 September 2023 • 10 min
When you think of bees, you probably don’t think of single-celled eukaryotes. What could an insect have in common with, say, a ciliate?
14. Liverworts Use The Rain To Make Their Clones
Aired 11 September 2023 • 8 min
An ambiguously long time ago, there was this theory of medicine. An idea that if you came across a plant that looked like a body part, that meant it was meant to treat ailments that targeted said part. And this put a lot of pressure on liverwort, simply because it resembled the liver.
15. Bacteria That Survive In Gelatinous Colonies
Aired 18 September 2023 • 9 min
In the 1820s, a man named Dr. R. Brandes walked through a meadow on a quest to try and answer a centuries-old question about a mysterious gelatinous substance on the ground known as “star jelly.”
16. Is It Possible To Photosynthesize In The Dark?
Aired 25 September 2023 • 11 min
Our master of microscopes is always looking for rare ciliates that live in areas low in oxygen. But when he puts those samples under a growth light, his tubes quickly turn the color of the green sulfur bacteria that thrive in those anaerobic conditions.
17. This Predator Is A Shape-Shifter
Aired 2 October 2023 • 10 min
In the middle of the 19th century, a scientist stared into the microscope and found, staring back at him, a vampire.
18. Blood-Sucking Escape Artists
Aired 9 October 2023 • 10 min
Of all the animals that we’ve examined in the microcosmos, leeches are probably one of the few that can be used as a verb, to leech off someone—to take and take from them, like a worm consuming someone’s blood.
19. This Microscopic Killer Wears Its Victims
Aired 16 October 2023 • 10 min
If you have been following Journey to the Microcosmos for some time, this might sound like a familiar story.| Consider this a proper slasher movie sequel.
20. These Dancing Worms Are Surprisingly Useful
Aired 23 October 2023 • 9 min
21. Some Ciliates Are Hiding a Secret Weapon
Aired 30 October 2023 • 11 min
22. Can Microbes Just Appear Out Of Nowhere?
Aired 6 November 2023 • 12 min
Can life be created spontaneously? Well, a year and a half ago, our master of microscopes, James, was inspired by the idea of spontaneous generation and set up his own little experiment.
23. Trying To Solve Some Micro Mysteries
Aired 13 November 2023 • 9 min
We Found Some Things We Can't Explain Today's episode has one particular theme: a bunch of funny things going on in the microcosmos.
24. What Do These Algae Do With Four Genomes?
Aired 20 November 2023 • 9 min
25. The History of Red Algae
Aired 11 December 2023 • 9 min
Imagine that you aren’t watching the microcosmos right now. Instead you’re living in the world as it existed around one billion years ago, and you are the ancestor of this red algae.
26. These Mites Give Cheese Its Flavor
Aired 18 December 2023 • 11 min
27. Why Picocyanobacteria Might Just Outlast All Of Us
Aired 9 January 2024 • 9 min
In the northeast Atlantic Ocean, plankton populations aren’t looking like they used to. And at the center of it all are tiny, photosynthetic bacteria called picocyanobacteria who may just outlast us all.
28. We Built A Tardigrade Trap, And It Worked
Aired 15 January 2024 • 10 min
We don’t know if there are many rites of passage institutionalized among amateur microscopists. But we have to imagine that, as people find themselves navigating the microcosmos for the first time, they’re often on the lookout for tardigrades.
29. The Microbial Universe That Makes Kombucha
Aired 22 January 2024 • 10 min
When you think of kombucha, you might think of a nice, refreshing, healthy drink, one that’s exceptionall good for your microbiome. What we here at Journey to the Microcosmos think of is a terrarium…a place where a whole ecosystem exists, trapped in glass.
30. This Microbe Hasn't Been Seen Since The 1930s
Aired 29 January 2024 • 10 min
After an absence of almost 90 years, we’ve found a rare ciliate last written about about in 1933.
31. What Makes A Microbe Rare?
Aired 12 February 2024 • 11 min
In the microcosmos—where the organisms vastly outnumber us, where what we find in a single pool of water can change from day to day—it makes us as what it mean for a microbe to be rare?
32. These Tiny Crustaceans Hate Change
Aired 19 February 2024 • 10 min
One of the fascinating aspects of microscopy is the way you can look so deeply into something that it becomes unrecognizable. What could look like a stained glass window could actually turn out to be... a hopping shrimp?
33. This special diatom is having a very bad day
Aired 28 February 2024 • 10 min
It’s hard to count how many times we’ve encountered diatoms on Journey to the Microcosmos. However, we've always talked about the more colorful variety of diatom, and not the ones that are colorless.
34. We Fed Our Microbes Blood So You Don't Have To
Aired 4 March 2024 • 8 min
If you’ve clicked on this video, we assume it’s because you read the title, “We fed our microbes blood so you don’t have to,” and immediately asked the question everyone asks when a youtuber says they did something so you don’t have to: but why?
35. These Slugs Led Us to the Last Good Place on the Internet
Aired 11 March 2024 • 13 min
If you were asked to describe what a sea slug is, you might be tempted to go with the straightforward response: it’s a slug that lives in the sea. And you know, you wouldn’t be wrong.
36. How Do We Find Cancer?
Aired 25 March 2024 • 13 min
Usually on Journey to the Microcosmos, we spend our time delving into the microscopic world and the surprising things that microbes have to teach us. But today, we would like to talk about Hank Green, and what was his cancer.
37. Watch a Stentor Fix Itself
Aired 15 April 2024 • 9 min
Today James, our master of microscopes, is using a microscopy slide as a cutting board, chopping away at the slide to end up with a bunch of individual stentors.
38. This Amoeba Made Armor From Its Dead Enemies
Aired 22 April 2024 • 9 min
This amoeba has a shell around it, which seems like a pretty good idea. The world at large is full of predators, and shells seem like a straightforward strategy to ward those predators off. But what if this amoeba’s shell wasn’t just a form of protection? What if it was actually dangerous?
39. We Found Something Strange in Portugal
Aired 29 April 2024 • 10 min
Sometimes, the microcosmos can take a little while to surprise. You have to be patient, enjoying the familiar sights as you wait for something new.
40. We've Been Looking For This Purple Amoeba for 6 Years!
Aired 6 May 2024 • 9 min
We know that it’s bad form to return to the same word over and over again here on Journey to the Microcosmos. But whenever we write about amoeba, we will probably say the word “blob” a lot.
41. You Have Something in Common With This Horrifying Tube Worm
Aired 13 May 2024 • 11 min
When James, our master of microscopes, was looking through samples he’d received from Spain, he didn’t expect to see this—a creature straight out of a horror movie, with dark reddish brown eyes and tentacles streaming out of its mouth.
42. Tiny Mysteries from the Black Sea
Aired 28 May 2024 • 8 min
When you think of mussels and clams and other bivalve animals, you might think of something as shelled and static, perhaps sitting on your plate at a fancy restaurant. But before the mussel got to your plate, it led a life—and all things considered, a surprisingly active one.
43. We Found a Very, Very Tiny Kraken
Aired 10 June 2024 • 8 min
Our Master of Microscopes James was fascinated by something he found in some samples he had been given from Portugal. Something that would lead us to a kraken in the microcosmos…but how?
44. How Does The Microcosmos Change With the Seasons?
Aired 24 June 2024 • 12 min
We Spent a Year Looking at Microbes in a Polish Pond Have you ever wondered what seasons look like to a microbe? How they navigate the highs, the lows, and all the muddy, slushy in-betweens?
45. Why Are Ciliates So Hairy?
Aired 9 July 2024 • 12 min
For James, our master of microscopes, the immense breadth has made ciliates a bit of an obsession. Whether he’s hunting down a rare species, or documenting the behavior of something more familiar, there’s always something spectacular in this group.
46. What These Microbes Teach Us About Free Will
Aired 22 July 2024 • 9 min
We’re focusing today on a Journey to the Microcosmos favorite: the ciliates, the single-celled eukaryotes covered in hair-like structures called cilia. We want to be more self-centered and explore what ciliates have taught us about ourselves.
47. Microscopic Beauty from a Nuclear Test Site
Aired 5 August 2024 • 9 min
James, our master of microscopes, seems like a tough person to get a gift for. What do you get the person who has the entirety of the microcosmos available to him with just a glimpse through a lens?
48. Why Do Planarians Have Those Triangles on their Heads?
Aired 19 August 2024 • 8 min
Flatworms are kind of adorable. And they have keep scientists up at night for a few reasons.
49. A Collection of Tiny Universes
Aired 3 September 2024 • 8 min
Whenever we get to watch things through the microscope together, it’s like we’re transported to another world—or maybe another universe, or dimension. Time and space feel off somehow, with sights that are slower and faster and nearer and farther all at once.
50. Some Microbes Also Take Naps
Aired 16 September 2024 • 10 min
One thing we’ve heard from many of you is that this show is your sleep show, that soothing bit of media you put on when you need to slow down your brain and drift off. We take that as a huge compliment. It’s nice to know we can be a part of your relaxation journey.
51. We Answer Your Questions!
Aired 30 September 2024 • 13 min
While our journey through the microcosmos together is soon coming to a close, we know that some of you still have questions…questions that we wanted to take this last opportunity to explore.
52. We Spilled Ink On Our Slides to See What Would Happen
Aired 14 October 2024 • 11 min
Science is about more than just finding immutable laws of nature. It’s about having the imagination to try things and ask questions that might not necessarily lead anywhere, but that just… feel right.
53. The Future of Microscopy (and end of our Journey)
Aired 28 October 2024 • 11 min
People have been staring through the microscope for centuries, peering into the microcosmos and uncovering its beauty as they pursue deeper questions about the world around us. This is our series finale, and we want to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for coming on this journey with us. It has been such a privilege to be a part of such a wonderful community, and we can't wait to join you all on your journeys ahead.