Monthly archives: July, 2014

Cubehelix color scheme

Cubehelix is a color scheme that retains contrast as it is desaturated (top), as opposed to a more typical rainbow scheme (bottom). It’s great for look-up-tables (LUTs).

Dave Green’s web site has multiple implementations of…



Personal laser cutter

It’s easy to underestimate the implications of running a laser cutter. Toxic fumes, tons of space occupied (machine and stock materials), breakdowns. It’s maybe not worth it since there are so many companies that will ship you…



OpenTrons – liquid handling robots for high throughput

OpenTrons is a project to develop an open architecture for liquid handling lab robots. Actually, they’re more versatile than that. They can also be used for related robotic tasks, such as pick-and-place machines. They already have…



Abbe Diffraction setup

Kurt Thorn shared the parts list for his Abbe diffraction setup. He describes how to use it in his blog post, but you can also check out his talk.



OpenLabTools at Cambridge

OpenLabTools is a new initiative at Cambridge University, using engineering students to develop modular lab equipment.

The OpenLabTools initiative aims to provide a forum and knowledge centre for the development of low cost and open access…



Barrels XXVII

The focus of the Barrels XXVII meeting is still very much on barrel cortex, but they’re generously permitting a bit of visual cortex work to be presented. Here’s more information (pdf link-but the reg link…



Optomechanics and microscopy technical notes – many items

Vojnovic’s group at Oxford has dozens of technical notes. Most are concise, and include software code, if applicable. SolidWorks files and PCB files are available on request.

Here are a few examples:

A motorized 4-way optical…



Cardboard for prototyping

Anonymous tipster Alfred shared this snapshot of a ThorLabs Quick Bites box repurposed as a project box.

Cardboard isn’t a bad thing to prototype things up with, for example:
Google’s stereoscopic goggles
Relatedly, here’s a microscope…



DIY Von Frey filaments

A tool for psychophysics experiments– DIY Von Frey filaments. (Pubmed)
Tip from Justin Lieber.



FlyMAD

This tip comes from John Stowers. He and his colleagues developed an open source opto- and thermo- genetic system for targeting freely moving Drosophila with lasers.

He wrote a long post discussing some of the…



The vaguest journal title of all time

American International Journal of Contemporary Research
Maybe even self-contradictory and redundant as well. Nice work.

It was started by the equally unfocussed Center for Promoting Ideas.