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The 3D Pollen Project Project ID: 00000C627 Public
93 Media · 35 Specimens · Managed by: Oliver Wilson

DESCRIPTION

Pollen is amazing stuff. Made of sporopollenin, 'the diamond of the plant world', pollen grains are among nature's toughest creations. They can help reconstruct the past, solve crimes, deliver medicines, genetically engineer plants and figure out what's in your honey - and yes, they can give you hayfever too. But because these grains are so small it can be problematic for pollen scientists to showcase their work to others without using microscopes. And even with microscopes it can be difficult to interpret pollen's three-dimensional structure from flat, two-dimensional images. This means that learning pollen identification is often a significant challenge, making use of photos and drawings in a process that has hardly changed for decades. 3D-printing has the potential to transform this, but currently no freely available pollen model files exist.

The 3D Pollen Project aims to address this. Led by PhD student Oliver Wilson, the Project is a collaboration between the Universities of Reading and Hull, UK, funded by the University of Reading Teaching and Learning Development Fund, and by Mangorolla CIC and the Wellcome Trust through the I'm A Scientist competition. Using laser scanning confocal microscopy, we are producing accurate, printable 3D models of pollen grains from reference and herbarium material, and making them available online for non-commercial use. We hope they will be of use and interest to scientists, communicators, teachers and the wider public, for outreach, education and research.

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STATISTICS

Number of media
93
Number of represented specimens
35
Number of represented cultural heritage objects
0
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