As microbiologists, we owe a lot to the Dutch visionary, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, who is considered by many to be the father of microbiology. He produced is own microscopes and was one of the first people along with Robert Hooke to observe a microbial world that we now take for granted.

These days we place a lot of emphasis on multidisciplinary work and while the situation is not the same, it is hard not to be inspired by van Leeuwenhoek. He was a true multidisciplinary scientist, producing powerful lenses for his cutting edge microscopes, then using them to be the first to describe and document muscle fibers, bacteria, spermatozoa, and blood flow in capillaries.

Google, today recognised the genius of van Leeuwenhoek with an inventive and fitting Doodle:

"I chose to make it an animated Doodle to show the 'before and after' experience that Antoni van Leeuwenhoek had — looking through a microscope and seeing a surprising new world."

And that's exactly what he does. We all know the important work that Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and it is really nice to see it get recognition somewhere as prominent as the front page of Google.

Happy Birthday Antoni van Leeuwenhoek!

Images from OU History of Science Collection used under CC BY-SA 2.0 and Google