It must have been a heart-stopping moment four centuries ago when the earliest users of the original optical microscope first peered through the device at a drop of pond water. Although that water had surely appeared clear to the naked eye, a virtual parade of unfamiliar and even sinister-looking blobs must have seemed to take its place under the microscope, suggesting the existence of a fully populated world hidden right before our very eyes. Such, indeed, was essentially the case. Recently, however, scientists have had cause to experience a similar feeling all over again.
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Hidden in Plain Sight: A Missing Branch on the Tree of Life
Posted by: Katherine Noyes June 8, 2011 05:00 AMIt must have been a heart-stopping moment four centuries ago when the earliest users of the original optical microscope first peered through the device at a drop of pond water. Although that water had surely appeared clear to the naked eye, a virtual parade of unfamiliar and even sinister-looking blobs must have seemed to take its place under the microscope, suggesting the existence of a fully populated world hidden right before our very eyes. Such, indeed, was essentially the case. Recently, however, scientists have had cause to experience a similar feeling all over again.