Explore browser-based laboratories that turn scientific concepts into visual, hands-on experiments — each one a self-contained page that runs on any device, requires no installation, and keeps no data. The MICB120 Microbiology series now covers all nine chapters of the course: one laboratory per chapter.
The course opens where microbiology began — with the unseen. Meet the major groups of microbes, get a feel for their sizes and scales, walk the history of the field, take in the tree of life, and learn why names matter.
The instruments that make the invisible visible: microscope anatomy and optics, the magnification lab, the imaging techniques from brightfield to fluorescence and electron microscopy, slide preparation, and the staining bench.
The foundations of microbiology through hands-on experiments: the classical studies of spontaneous generation (Redi, Needham, Spallanzani, Pasteur), osmosis and osmotic stress, cell shape and arrangement, the Gram procedure, chemotaxis, endospore resistance, membrane transport, and prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell structure.
The prokaryotes in their full variety: extreme habitats, symbiosis from parasitism to mutualism, the microbiome, identification of the Proteobacteria and Gram-positive bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, and the archaea of the third domain.
The microbial eukaryotes: the protist toolkit, amoebozoa, excavata, parasitic helminths, fungi from yeasts to molds, the algae, and lichens — a fungus and a photobiont living together.
The acellular pathogens: the discovery trail that revealed viruses, viral structures and classification, host range and transmission, viral genomes and taxonomy, and the lytic and lysogenic cycles.
The chemistry of life: the elements that build every molecule in a cell, isomerism, the bonds that hold molecules together — and the macromolecule labs for carbohydrates, lipids and proteins.
How cells harvest and spend energy: metabolism basics, the energy carriers, enzymes and their control, glycolysis, the Krebs cycle and respiration, fermentation, photosynthesis — and the biogeochemical cycles, with bioremediation.
How microbes grow and how we study them: temperature, pH and osmotic requirements, oxygen classes, culture media, selective and differential media, culturing and preservation, binary fission, the growth curve, and the methods that measure growth.