Ikuko Smith taught me that me that Japanese people judge others by the way they wring out a washcloth. “It says a lot about how a person was raised.” That was a new thing for me to be self conscious about, but addressable. Unlike my technique for eating corn-on-the-cob. This Iowa boy is stuck in…
There are different types of pulse compressors, this is clever single prism design.
Here’s a quick question I received via email that might be worth sharing: Does using a pulse compressor make a noticeable…
Many are aware of the burden of bureaucratic administrative tasks on professors. A colleague of mine called it “Death by 1000 paper cuts.” It takes time away from research and other scholarly activities, and oftentimes the time commitment is substantial, taking 20-40% of a professor’s time, depending on who you ask and what items are…
Coming soon to your neuroscience lab.
Thorlabs has worked with the great Jacob Reimer to create a streamlined 2p system that is compact enough to mount on a…
Academics don’t typically receive much advice in time management during their training. Then they get a tenure-track position and are expected to figure it out. Most do indeed figure it out, but there can be pain involved. Here are some simple bits of advice, take what you find useful, ignore the rest.
The best system…
Your amazing imaging rig should be operated with the room lights on. There’s no reason you need to do your work in the dark. My rigs are built lightproof. Very lightproof….
For those who might find it useful, I am sharing some grant-writing advice. It is specifically for writing NIH R01 grants, but many of the principles are more broadly applicable.
Private universities have many fewer undergraduate students compared to public universities. From Wikipedia, mostly 2021 numbers.
People generally understand the difference in governance between public and private schools, but they…
Making good use of those indirect cost returns
Spending a lot of money on a big purchase can be time consuming. Whether it’s a high-power laser, an imaging system, or something else,…
This piece from Eve Marder resonantes with me. Just a couple of notes to elaborate on it.
Pages from Oliver Smithies’ lab notebook
Write it down. I tell people in…
I might be alone in this, and I’m willing to die on this hill, but here it is:
Vertical histograms are better than all of these: violin plots, box plots, kernel density plots, beeswarm plots. (if you don’t know those terms, simply do a web search for them for examples)
Just show me the naked distribution….
If you’re looking for a lab/prof to sponsor your grad work or post doc, it can be difficult to find a match. Responding to advertisements is one way. Cold emails are another way.
Like a lab, but no ad? Apply anyways. Almost everyone I know is almost always looking to hire good…
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…
There are some companies that have no real competition. Maybe a product here-and-there in their catalog is subject to market forces, but most of their items have no competing options from…
It can be confusing navigating accounting in academic research, and thankfully there are admin pros that do most of that work for us, but it’s good to know some basics….
