Image: Dr. Francesca Antonella Sepúlveda

November is here! The temperatures are dropping, the trees are turning red, and autumn is showing off its colors. For some, this means staying indoors with a warm cup of coffee. For others, it is the perfect time to put on their hiking boots and head out for an adventure.

Our little explorer seems to belong to the second group!

With a backpack, a warm scarf, and binoculars in hand, our adventurer has reached the top of a rather unusual landscape. Red hills stretch into the distance, crossed by turquoise paths and deep, dark valleys. It looks like a perfect place for an autumn hike, although finding the way back might be a challenge!

But there is something our explorer doesn’t know: these mountains are not made of rocks, and those colorful paths are certainly not hiking trails.

This landscape is actually a confocal fluorescence microscopy image of L929 mouse fibroblasts cultured on a biomaterial developed in collaboration with the research team led by Dr. Andrés Ortiz at the Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

The red and turquoise colors are not what we would see with our eyes. In fluorescence microscopy, specific cellular structures can be labeled with fluorescent markers that emit light when excited at particular wavelengths. The microscope detects these signals, allowing us to visualize details that would otherwise be difficult to distinguish.