Life through a giant lens

The giant lens was developed to meet the growing need to examine larger and larger tissue samples, in particular early stage genetically modified mouse embryos. These will play a vital role in the identification of new treatments for diseases such as cancer
Photograph: The Royal Society

A human flea (Pulex irritans) as seen through the new microscope, which was developed by a team of Medical Research Council scientists led by Dr William Amos
Photograph: The Royal Society

The low magnification (x4) and high 'cone angle' of the lens give an unusually wide angle view of the specimen. Viewing such a large area would be a laborious process with conventional microscopes, but with the Mesolens it can be achieved instantaneously
Photograph: The Royal Society

Robert Hooke’s 1660 engraving of a human flea. Visitors to the exhibition can pan and zoom an image of a flea thought to be one of the most detailed biological images ever taken. High definition mice and human brain cells are also on display
Photograph: The Royal Society

A culture dish containing many thousands of cells from the brain of a rat (top left), labelled with fluorescent dyes. The image covers a very large area – 6mm in diameter. The inset demonstrates the extraordinary detail contained in a small portion of the main image, including nerve cells (green), glial cells (red), and the nuclei (blue) of star-shaped cells known as astrocytes
Photograph: The Royal Society

Optical section through a fish embryo taken with the Mesolens
Photograph: The Royal Society

Images of the water flea Daphnia, showing the effect of increasing exposure length (left)
Photograph: The Royal Society

A living water flea, captured in its entirety by the Mesolens. Dr Amos said: 'Our new microscope opens up many new possibilities for viewing large volumes of living tissue without sacrificing clarity or losing the ability to perceive depth, which has been a major problem with existing microscopes'
Photograph: The Royal Society