Microscopes

Question 1

What are the advantages/disadvantages of a light microscope?

Answer 1

Advantages: Living plants/organisms or parts of them can be seen directly. Useful and allows you to compare prepared slides with living tissues. + Are relatively cheap so are available in schools, unis and industrial labs. Transported and used anywhere in the world.
Disadvantages: Preservation and staining tissues can produce artefacts in tissues being observed, so what is seen may be only as a result of preparation. + Limited powers of resolution and magnification.

Question 2

What are the advantages/disadvantages of an electron microscope?

Answer 2

Advantages: Huge powers of magnification and resolution
Disadvantages: Specimens examined in a vacuum - impossible to look at living material. + Specimens undergo severe treatment that is likely to result in artefacts. + Extremely expensive. Large, have to be kept at constant temp and pressure and need to maintain an internal vacuum.