About five years ago, I had an idea for a YouTube channel called the Germ House.

Inspiration had struck me after I came across a YouTube video of a dying single celled organism from the genus Blepharisma that was recorded by a microscopist in Poland named James Weiss. So I reached out to James and I pitched him on this idea of the Germ House, a YouTube series that took his incredible microscopy footage and added in narration by me and music by Andrew Huang.

And thankfully he said yes. And after developing the show with some folks at Complexly, we landed on a new and better name Journey to the Microcosmos. And the result is the hundreds of astonishingly beautiful videos that make up this channel.

We have watched a ciliate go through its last moments. We’ve seen microorganisms form colonies. And of course, we've encountered many different adorable tardigrades.

We even created our own microscope to help our viewers take their own journeys into the microcosmos. More on that in a second. But I am sad to announce that not unlike that aforementioned ciliate, our time on this channel is near its end.

The economics of making educational media can be difficult. And we have reached the point where we can no longer sustainably make this show The show is ending, but in my view, this project has been an enormous success. For five years, we have explored something that, for almost all of human history, was completely invisible and unknown.

And I'm so proud of what we have accomplished. And of course, we've only been able to make so many wonderful videos over the years, thanks to the remarkable team who works on this channel. Folks like our writer and co-host Deboki Chakravarti who has written 99% of the words you have heard me say on this channel.

She is the true voice of Microcosmos. Our producer, Matthew Gaydos, who helped shape this channel from the beginning and has kept the train on the tracks. Our former creative director, Mark Olsen, who designed the entire esthetic of our channel.

Our video editor, Chayton Whaley, who has worked hard to make sure you have compelling stories to watch every week. And, of course, James, our Master of Microscopes, who provides the idea, footage, and guidance for each episode. These folks and the rest of the members of our team - including our sound engineer Callie Dishman, our script editor Paige Madison, and our communications coordinator Buzz Bezio deserve immense credit for turning the show from an idea originally known as “The Germ House” into this absolutely beautiful YouTube channel.

We also owe a lot of gratitude to each and every one of you who has supported us on Patreon or bought a microscope or a mug or any of our other merch. Thank you for making it possible for us to make this super weird niche show a reality for the last five years. So, some housekeeping.

We are not going away just yet. We plan to continue posting new episodes here throughout 2024, the rate of our uploads will change as our team starts to work on new shows, but we'll still be around for the remainder of the year. Also our Patreon will stay open while we continue to upload videos, but we will be shutting it down at the end of the year and we greatly appreciate those of you who choose to support the channel until the very end.

And along with our final batch of episodes, we're also releasing one final batch of our Journey to the Microcosmos Microscopes. Making these microscopes and seeing so many of you go on your own first microscopy journeys with them has truly been one of the most rewarding parts of doing this channel. This is going to be the very last order of Microcosmos Microscopes we will place.

So be sure to get them now before they are gone forever. You can pick one up at microcosmos.store or at the link in the description. That's all for now.

But like I said, we will still be around for the rest of the year, sharing more stories from the world of the microcosmos before we say goodbye to this beautiful, weird channel. Until then, thank you for coming on this journey with us as we explore the unseen world that surrounds us.