A clinic in figure design
Posted in Tips
You don’t have to be an APBRmetrician to appreciate the graphics Kirk Goldsberry puts together from his analysis. They’re clear, the data-to-ink ratio is high, and there are appropriate annotations…
Category: Tips
The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)
Posted in Tips
“The Journal Impact Factor, as calculated by Thomson Reuters, was originally created as a tool to help librarians identify journals to purchase, not as a measure of the scientific quality of research in an article.”
Cheap DIY Kwik-Cast
I find WPI’s Kwik-Cast handy for some things around the lab. When we were modest users, the price didn’t bother me too much. However, when we started going through so much of it, I…
Feedly, to replace Google Reader
Here’s a follow up on the previous post about alternatives to Google Reader (which is being shut down).
Patrick Mineault commented that Feedly is looking good. I agree. Basic functionality is smooth and…
Scattering in tissue
Posted in Tips
Post by Jeffrey Stirman
The opacity of the brain is one barrier to optically imaging individual neurons and their connections. Scattering in tissue is the main reason tissue is not transparent; absorption also plays a…
Google Reader is going away
Google Reader is going to be shut down on July 1.
If you use Reader, here’s what to do:
Step 1: Export all of your subscriptions from Google Reader
(takes less than 1 minute)
Variability where you really don’t want it
Posted in Tips
Post by Christian Wilms
I’ll admit it: I’m lazy. When I use a calcium indicator and need to know its physico-chemical properties, I like to simply look it up in the manufacturer’s catalogue or…
More references
Posted in Tips
Wolfgang Becker just gave a nice talk at the Berkeley Advanced Imaging Methods meeting.
I should add the Becker-Hinkl literature to the list of online references.
Previously
Catalogs as textbooks
Troubleshooting fluorescence microscopy
…
Photoswitchable GECI
Posted in Tips
Many red fluorescent proteins go through a green fluorescent stage prior to becoming fully folded into their mature red fluorescent state. In fact, some proteins can be photoswitched in and/or out of their mature…
PubPeer is taking off
Posted in Tips
PubPeer, a site for anonymous (or non-anonymous), post-publication peer review is taking off nicely. Traffic is increasing to the site and there are a lot of interesting comments, including both detailed commentary…
Death of the impact factor
Posted in Tips
There will probably always be a need for metrics like impact factor so that non-experts can estimate the significance of a scientist’s publications. These metrics are problematic, as we all know.
Interestingly, the relationship between…
Inventables: raw materials source
Inventables is a web retailer with a decent site that makes it easy to find raw materials and interesting components. E.g., stretch-sensing rubber and conductive velcro.
…
GCaMP6 now available
Posted in Tips
If you’ve been waiting to jump on the GECI bandwagon, you just ran out of excuses.
GCaMP6, a legitimate breakthrough, is now available at Addgene.
Hat tip to ybot.
…
R&D budgets in perspective
Posted in Tips
A sense of scale can be valuable. Here are the 2012 Research & Development budgets of several tech companies and pharmaceutical companies compared to approximate annual disbursements from the Wellcome Trust and the…