It's not that they aren't well enough funded to have a DSLR on hand. They'll often have very much more expensive cameras in the lab, but they'll be purpose-buil

It's not that they aren't well enough funded to have a DSLR on hand. They'll often have very much more expensive cameras in the lab, but they'll be purpose-built into other very expensive equipment such as microscopes. It's more that a requirement to take DSLR-type photos in a lab is so very rare and unusual that they don't bother getting one, and then when there is a sudden need to take a photo of something startling, the nearest camera (the phone in the pocket) is reached for. Clearly if there were a requirement to take a quality photo for a journal, then the correct piece of equipment would be obtained, but these images that we're seeing aren't intended for that.