Microcosm

Microcosm Study

Abbott (1966) described microcosms as miniaturized ecosystems. Among the oldest and most specialized examples of the microcosm technique were bioassay systems, such as that found in the standard BOD determination. Abbott also noted that, due to the unpredictability and complexity of natural systems, in situ experiment results were often vague and inconclusive, and many researchers had successfu...

“Giants in a Microcosm”

On examination of a breast mass surgically excised in a 69-years-old woman, a pure invasive micropapillary carcinoma (MPC) was diagnosed (Figure 1). At close examination, intensely eosinophilic syncytial-multinucleated giant cells (CD68+) percolating the stromal bands were identified (Figure 1). The breast carcinoma illustrated here shows therefore a combination of 2 rarities, namely, an invasi...

Man Is a Microcosm

Microevolution in an electronic microcosm.

The evolution of microbial populations in simple environments such as chemostats is still not fully understood. The classical interpretation of adaptation involves a process of successive substitution whereby a new dominant genotype arises by mutation from the genotype previously dominant and spreads more or less rapidly through the population until it is nearly fixed. The population is, thus, ...

Microcosm experiments can inform global ecological problems.

Global-scale environmental problems are rarely regarded as amenable to traditional scientific experiment. We argue here that small-scale experiments using 'model organisms' in microcosms or mesocosms can be a useful approach for apparently intractable global problems, such as ecosystem responses to climate change or managing biodiversity through the design of nature reserves. An experimental, s...