Advice for responding to reviewers
Posted in Tips
I was taught that when responding to reviewer criticism, there are two valid strategies: (1) new data, or (2) references to papers. When reviewers stray from these two strategies, they are…
Category: Tips
Practice your talk
Posted in Tips
“I know I’m over time, I just have one more thing I want to tell you about, I think, …”
I practice my talks and try to nail the timing. I use the presenter display in…
Specifications for new lab space
Posted in Tips
Setting up some new lab space? Need some plans and specifications for renovations? Here are some notes that are relevant for setting up rooms for 2-photon microscopes and/or electrophysiology to be used with animals. If your target is something different from that, then maybe there are at least…
Guidance for designing an objective from scratch
Several people have reached out for guidance on designing and building an objective from scratch, when they have little-to-no background in custom optics. Here are some notes on the topic, in broad strokes, focused on the practicalities.
…
Cleaning and storing lenses and optics
The easy ways aren’t usually the best ways. This might be an exception. Check out the video.
This is an interesting product for cleaning and storing lenses. It’s called “First Contact”, and is made by…
Postdoc position at Imperial College London – optics, holography, neuroscience, optogenetics
Posted in Tips
Post by Amanda Foust
Applications are invited for the above post to work with Dr. Amanda Foust (Bioengineering department) and Prof. Pier Luigi Dragotti (Electrical and Electronic Engineering department) on a BBSRC funded project in…
Server space – cloud or on-campus?
Cloud storage is not the cure-all it is sometimes proposed to be. On-campus servers have some advantages in transmission speed and cost, especially as storage requirements grow considerably. Talk to your campus IT services before shelling…
Actually useful comments on scientific blogging
Posted in Tips
I came across Rachel Thomas’ comments on blogging in the context of machine learning, and they’re good. I’ve been telling people things like this for awhile now and Rachel distills them better than I do. I’ll…
Series resistance in patch clamp experiments
Posted in Tips
For teaching electrophysiology, there’s still a lack of comprehensive references. In particular, it can be difficult to impart to students an intuitive feel for the quality or fidelity of electrophysiological recordings. How close to the truth are…
Imaging course at Max Planck Florida
Posted in Tips
Max Planck Florida is running their imaging course again and there’s still time to apply. They’ve got great faculty including Na Ji, Ryohei Yasuda, Yi Zuo, Chris Xu, Jeff Lichtman, Naomi Kamasawa, and more!
…
Tons of 2p spectra – twophotondyes.com
Posted in Tips
Daniel Fiole is curating a nice resource for 2p cross sections: twophotondyes.com
There’s a lot here. It’s not just dyes, he has links for fluorescent proteins as well, and there’s 3p…
Checking PMT performance over time
Posted in Tips
PMT performance can degrade over time. A friend asked mine recently ask for suggestions on how to check PMT performance. In a prior post, I mentioned that the Hamamatsu PMT Handbook talks a bit…
Ripple noise on PMTs in 2-photon imaging – Part 2
Posted in Tips
The recent post on ripple noise generated some comments and additional discussion. Go check out the comments on that post. For example, Peter Rupprecht shared some snapshots an oscilloscope display showing the signal from the…
Ripple noise on PMTs in 2-photon imaging
Posted in Tips
Andrew Lim wrote in to discuss strategies on dealing with ripple noise in 2-photon imaging systems, particularly when using resonant scanners. He writes:
This isn’t so much a tip as a problem with resonant two-photon scopes that…
Slack software for labs
Slack is very useful team coordination software. It’s been such a help in my own lab, that I suspect that given a properly configured Slack account, I could simultaneously run GE, Google, Intel, and the US…