Microstars

Great balls of fire: newborn nerve cells navigate their universe 

Picture: Dana Bradford / Courtesy of Australian Museum Eureka Priz 

Some microscope images could have come from a powerful telescope. This neurosphere was cultured from an adult mouse brain in a project aiming to determine how new brain cells are born in the adult brain. With nascent neurons (yellow) navigating amongst associated astrocytes (red), it reminds me of a meteorite in the night sky and highlights the mirror relationship between microcosm and macrocosm. In the century old words of Cajal: As long as our brain is a mystery, the universe, the reflection of the structure of the brain will also be a mystery.