Cat pee! Crystallized cat urine from my wee cat Tim, he was kind enough to donate somewhere hidden that I didn't notice until it had evaporated and crystallized on some plastic bags. I then dissolved, recrystallized and viewed under the polarized light 🔬 #sciart #CatsOfTwitter

Forgotten slides of decaying amino acid crystals. The humidity in the air speeds along the breakdown. #sciart #abstractart

Viewed at ~100x under polarized light microscopy the birefringent crystals bend the filtered light passing through to make a variety of colors dependent on angle and thickness.

Crystals formed from forgotten slides of Callus Remover. The active ingredient is Potassium Hydroxide, KOH or caustic potash. Prominently featured in fight club to give a nasty burn to Edward Norton's character and to make soap. #SciArtSeptember #sciart #Chemistry

Crystals of sulfamic acid under polarized 🔬 100x. It has many uses in production of artificial sweeteners and therapeutic drugs. Also used as a cleaning and descaling agent, safer than hydrochloric acid, such as Lime-a-away #sciart #SciArtSeptember #SciComm

Acetylsalicylic Acid or Aspirin crystals growing on a bed of molten menthol under polarized🔬 Felt like my workshop was coated in Vicks. Unrefined in chewed willow leaves, #Aspirin has been used as #painkiller and a fever/inflammation reducer for 2400 years. #sciart #drug

Feathery crystals of Carnosine, Alanine, Glutamine and Taurine again crystallized out of whiskey solution. Seems a hair fell on the slide while it was crystallizing on my hot plate and caused this interesting nucleation pattern. #sciart #Chemistry #sciencetwitter

Crystallized mixture of salicylic acid and malic acid under polarized light microscopy. Salicylic acid is used as an acne medication, wart and callus remover, malic acid is commonly used as a sour flavoring for foods and candy. #sciart #chemtwitter

A radial formation of the amino acids Carnosine, Alanine, Glutamine, and Taurine in whisky. When the solution is reduced to a thin film crystals grow outward from nucleation sites, in my house typically dust or cat hair. Polarized light 🔬 #Microscopy #sciencetwitter #CHEMISTRY

Discovered by Russian chemist Vladimir Gulevich Carnosine is an antioxidant and considered a geroprotector or anti-aging compound as it reduces the telomere shortening rate.

Carnosine crystals under polarized light microscopy. An amino acid itself made up of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine, carnosine is highly concentrated in muscle and brain tissues. #science #ScienceTwitter #sciart #scicomm

Hope everyone is surviving ok. Finally had a chance to work on some new imager so I tried dissolving a slightly different mixture of amino acids in whiskey a friend left in my freezer weeks ago and got some results that I am pretty stoked about. #sciart #chemtwitter

Liquid crystals flowing into a chiral liquid and arranging into a more organized pattern, specifically MBBA into limonene under polarized 🔬. MBBA is a liquid crystal around room temperature, making it useful for #LCD displays #sciart #chemtwitter #artistsontwitter #Microscopy

"Hello darkness my old friend" 🎶 another mixture of crystallized amino acids polarized 🔬 with some additives to alter the viscosity of the mix and a makeshift light retarder to play with the colors and shading. #sciart #chemtwitter #sciencetwitter

A little mountainous beta alanine. #sciart

Mitochondria are in yellow, cytoplasm green, fragments of endoplasmic reticulum in magenta, and the nucleas in teal. Ribosomes are also present as black dots in the cytoplasm.

White blood cell, a lymphocyte, at 5000x from a blood sample ~5 micrometers across. Lymphocytes are immune cells that can recognize and respond to antigens, produce antibodies, kill virus infected/tumor cells and regulate other immune cells. #biology #ImmuneSystem

Taurine is one of the most abundant amino acids in the brain, eyes, muscle tissue, and other various organs. Taurine deficiency leads to a variety of severe conditions like developmental abnormalities, kidney dysfunction, cardiomyopathy, and severe damage to retinal neurons.

Who doesn't love a crystallized mixture of beta alanine, l-glutamine, and taurine despite their unessential amino acidy nature. Taurine though is in fact very essential despite it not being incorporated into proteins. #sciart #Microscopy #chemistry

One of my favorites!

Caffeine is chemically related to the adenine and guanine bases of DNA and RNA. In the body is is metabolized by the liver into paraxanthine, theophylline, and theobromine which is the primary alkaloid found in chocolate. #sciart #Science #chemistry #Microscopy