Can I capture my cold / flu and look at it in my microscope?

Answer 1

if you actually have a cold of the flu, then its unlikely you have access to a microscope powerful enough to see the virus that caused your particular illness.

if you have a sinus infection or other problem caused by a bacteria, then probably you could with a standard microscope.

Answer 2

HI

Colds are caused by viruses. A virus is way too small to be seen in regular microscopes. You have to have a special kind of microscope that costs many thousands of dollars. And you cannot grow viruses in a dish - they only grow inside living things, like humans!

If you have an infection, like say a little cut that has some pus in it, or a pimple, then there are bacteria in the pus. Bacteria are way, way bigger than viruses, but they are still very small. You can see bacteria if you have a microscope that is about 1000x power. But usually the bacteria are almost transparent so before you can see them you have to stain them with a special kind of dye. It is probably not a great idea to try to grow these because after all, they are germs!

If you want to see some cool stuff, probably the best thing to do is to grow some mold and look at that. Just any piece of bread, if you moisten it and leave it out for a couple days, might start to have mold on it. Then you get a slide ( a little piece of glass) and use a needle or toothpick to take just a very small smidgeon of the mold. Put it in a drop of water on the slide and cover it with another piece of glass ( a very thin piece of glass called a cover slip, if you have one) then you should be able to see what the mold looks like with even a 100x power microscope.

Some other cool things to look at are bugs, hair, pieces of flowers or plants, dead skin, cloth... you can take very tiny pieces of food, like, if you have an onion, you can cut the onion and peel off the really thin skin that is on the layers of the onion. Then you can stain it with a little ioding and see what it looks like.

Answer 3

As a matter of fact you can but you have to have expensive laboratory equipment to do it. You can swab your throat and wipe it on a Little piece of Clean glass. Put it in a culture warmer and keep it warm for 3 days and then put it under a VERY HIGH POWER microscope and you can see the bacteria growth in it. I hope this helps you.

Answer 4

If you have a professional grade and/or electron microscope, yes. But if your microscope came from the Walmart, forget it.

Answer 5

If you had a powerful microscope & you knew what you were looking for...maybe...

Answer 6

sneeze on the slide and keep it warm.