Sense of scale

The vast majority of the time, I buy what I intend to. Like the old maxim from construction: “Measure twice, cut once”, I always take care to ensure I’m ordering the right thing. At least when things are expensive. When they’re cheap, I’m less…



Easy Arduino projects just got even easier

The killjoy afficiando commenters at Hack a Day love to deride as unsophisticated any project that uses an Ardunio (e.g. this thread). The platform has become so popular that, to co-opt a…



NEURON + Python in OSX

Post by Christoph Schmidt-Hieber

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Here are some relatively pain-free instructions to get NEURON to run with Python support on OS X.

1. Install XCode 3.x. XCode 4 will not work (*). You…



DIY Heat pad

More cleverness from Taro Ishikawa. Instead of buying a homeothermic heating pad for surgeries (these often cost > $1000), Taro used some basic industrial process control items. He bought his stuff in Japan, but similar items are available from McMaster-Carr in…



DIY Picospritzer

I was in Tokyo recently and stopped by my friend Taro Ishikawa’s lab (of TaroTools fame). He and Misa are doing very well. They have exciting work underway and are expanding their…



Art – Neurobiology art by Greg Dunn

Greg Dunn, a grad student at Penn, is a gifted artist. His work combines the geometry of neuronal arbors with the spare aesthetics of east Asian watercolor art.



GECOs – New proteins for calcium imaging

Post by Christian Wilms

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a big fan of small organic calcium indicators (e.g., Oregon Green BAPTA 1). Yes, genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) have many…



Rename variables in MATLAB

MATLAB version R2011b has just been released. The new format for error messages is not as mind blowing as you might have heard. However, there’s one cute little…



Project enclosures

Here are some ideas for project enclosures. The stock enclosures from Mouser, Digikey, and others are generally serviceable, but are rarely the perfect size. In addition, making the required cutouts can be inconvenient. Here are a couple of alternatives.



Viewing CAD files online

When I’m in a tight spot and don’t have CAD software handy, there are a couple of sites I use to view CAD files online.



MATLAB Mobile 2.0: cloud computing

MATLAB Mobile is a way to use MATLAB from an iOS device. It’s cute, but a bit odd, because you used to need to have MATLAB running on your own server in…



Tell the NIH what to spend money on

There’s an RFI (request for information) out now for the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience (the structure that cuts across different institutes that all support neuroscience: NINDS, NIMH, NEI, etc.). These RFIs…



CDF: Mathematica’s PDF

Wolfram is pushing a new document format called Computable Document Format (CDF). It looks like PDF + embedded Java apps.

One the one hand, there’s the xkcd viewpoint. This is basically just another…



Taro Tools and PPT for Igor Pro

Last Friday afternoon to Saturday morning I had a marathon data analysis session. It was almost completely in Igor Pro. I used TaroTools so heavily that I dropped Taro another thank you note. It’s really saved me so much programming and analysis time. I highly recommend checking it out. Prof. Ishikawa…



Rapid prototyping is rapidly maturing

In the past year, since Labrigger’s …