Have you ever wanted to isolate subcellular components from molecules to organelles with the old but ever improving ultracentrifuge method but were unable to figure out a correct protocol as the basics were not that clear?
To get an optimal protocol you have to take account the biological entity and pellet you want, the maximum volume input you need, the rotor and pathlength available in the lab and the time you have for all this.
Lately I’ve learnt the basics of ultracentrifugation from Richard Sicard (Thermo Scientific) who was nice enough to send me an excellent educational material called Ultracentrifugation: Basic Training from Thermo Fisher Scientific also giving me the permission to share it. I’ve chosen 14 slides. If you need a bigger resolution (especially on slide 2, 4), go to the Slideshare version and click full.
The biggest impact of the Austin Maker Faire on me was that yesterday I bought an open source, CC licensed Arduino microcontroller and a breadboard for building prototype electronic circuits. I am a total rookie in home electronics but I thought it’s never too late to learn completely new things with the help of our extended memory, the web.
In the long run I’d like to utilize my microcontroller (or the acquired knowledge) for biological purposes in the lab and not just blinking LEDs.
Have you heard of any quality biotech-biology based community (blog, forum, network) specialized in electronics or coding for researchers, online?
Pecha Kucha Night was invented four years ago by 2 architects, Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, in Tokyo. During the event each presenter is allowed 20 slides each shown for 20 seconds each giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. According to Wired journalist Daniel H. Pink: The result, in the hands of masters of the form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate clich into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.
Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chatter”) is practiced by architects and designers but it is easily and naturally transferable to science. It is a usual homework for scientists to make presentations for conferences, Journal Clubs, angel investors or for the public. But the design element is usually not well developed, the information component is overwhelming and scientists have poorly or never been trained in the art of public speaking. Just like laboratory websites, science slideshows are good targets of further education.
Imagine an online Pecha Kucha event/competition for scientists where participants can clap their hands by voting for the performance, information, design, entertainment, humor factor of each presenter/slideshow. Fortunately we already have the services who are able to host these Pecha Kucha events: Bioscreencast, JoVE or SciVee just to mention the ones that first came into my mind.
Of course the real Pecha Kucha event is originally offline, and eventually scientists should prove themselves in front of a flesh and blood audience.
It was a long time ago, when I last had the opportunity to scan through a complete printed, offline Science issue. On the picture made by Anna with my iPhone (it is not named yet), I am just going to relax with Science and sync my iPhone.
The Power to Set You Free: One of the best-known technology magazines is Wired, capturing in one word both the attraction and the bane of the Information Age. We all want to be connected, but none of us loves the cables that connect. Of course, a rapidly expanding plethora of wireless technologies–cellular phones, WiFi, ID tags, Bluetooth, and many others–provide data connectivity. But despite improvements in battery technology and Moore’s Law, the increasing performance of portable devices still has us reaching for a power cord far more often than we would like. But now Kurs et al. report on page 83 of this issue an ingenious approach that may offer us a chance for true wireless freedom: Wireless Power Transfer via Strongly Coupled Magnetic Resonances: Using self-resonant coils in a strongly coupled regime, we experimentallydemonstrated efficient nonradiative power transfer over distancesup to 8 times the radius of the coils. We were able to transfer60 watts with circa 40% efficiency over distances in excess of 2 meters. Read the rest of this entry »
Right to Recover is a new book written by Yvonne Perry freelance journalist with the subtitle: Winning the Political and Religious Wars over Stem Cell Research in America.
One of the constant hits of Pimm is the Terrific Pixar-style Harvard animation on molecular biology. The early animation was full of riddles for the non-experts, since it lacked the informative narration, the act of naming, just like we were at the age of silent films. Not anymore! Thanks to alfredoalcaldethe full video with narration wasuploaded on January 13, 2007. Now all XVIVO (the makers of the animation) folks have to do is to write a whole script and sell it to Pixar-Disney in Hollywood, as they have a fantastic trailer now: The story of a single leukocyte hero who is preparing for a terrible inflammation through leukocyte extravasation, where at sites of inflammation and in normal immune surveillance, chemokines direct leukocyte migration across the endothelium….Success guaranteed, this trailer will be an all-time educational hit. Original link via Biosingularity.
Update: It turned out that Harvard considers the full length version of ‘Inner Life of the Cell’ a fully copyrighted work. So the video was removed.
Have you ever wanted to isolate subcellular components from molecules to organelles with
the old but ever improving ultracentrifuge method but were unable to figure out a correct protocol as the basics were not that clear? 
It was a long time ago, when I last had the opportunity to scan through a complete printed, offline Science issue. On the picture made by Anna with my iPhone (it is not named yet), I am just going to relax with Science and sync my iPhone.