Tiny Jewels

September 19, 2014 7:26 AM

THE DIATOMIST is a short documentary about Klaus Kemp, master of the Victorian art of diatom arrangement. (via)
posted by Anonymous (3 comments total)

I was a field biologist (recently discussed in this thread), and while doing my field work in the mid-1990s used the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory as my field station. There were a number of undergraduate course taught there each summer, the most famous of which was a course on Diatoms taught by one of the world's preeminent scholars in the field. Most of the other courses were generally populated with students from the three Iowa public universities, but the Diatoms course brought people from all over the country.

THESE PEOPLE WERE SOOOOO INTO DIATOMS. I don't think I've ever seen a niche in the biological world with a more obsessed human audience. I remember sitting at dinner one night discussing my field work, which involved live-trapping a rodent called a meadow vole, with a diatoms student. Their only response was "do you think there are any diatoms living on the vole's fur?" I will give it to them though, it's an amazing and diverse corner of our biota.
posted by mcstayinskool at 7:53 AM on September 19, 2014 [6 favorites]

Delightful!
posted by Baldons at 9:12 AM on September 19, 2014

Reminds me of the micromosaics of Henry Dalton, except he used scales from butterfly wings and used a boar's bristle to manipulate them.
posted by jjwiseman at 12:14 PM on September 19, 2014 [2 favorites]