Using wood sticks and nylon filaments Marcelo de Sousa, Cleber Ferraresi, Ana de Magalhães, Elisabeth Yoshimura and Michael Hamblin design von Frey Filaments which perform as well as their commercial alternatives. Von Frey filaments are simply columns of various diameters that buckle at different forces that are often used to diagnose an animals response to stimuli. […]
A Simple Microfluidics Rigs with Inexpensive Board Cameras
An anonymous reader emailed us to share a small DIY microfluidic rig equipped with inexpensive board cameras. The chassis is mainly made out of laser-cut acrylic sheets, M6 nuts, and bolts. This GitHub page gives a comprehensive list of components complete with their cost, and instructions on how to assemble them.
Gyro Plus – A Variable Speed Micro-centrifuge for Just $240
Those people at minipcr sure are good at putting together really cheap but solid scientific equipment. Check out their Gyro Plus Micro-centrifuge for just $240. You can get a $150 model without the variable speed, but at that point you might want to just consider a salad spinner.
Respeaker: Tell Your Lab What To Do
It has always been a personal dream of mine to be able to talk to my lab equipment. I would particularly like voice controlled pipettes. I would say “Pipette, dispense 12.3 microliters please” and it would say “voice command not recognized, purging pipette,” and then I would scream. Ahhh the dream. Now behold the Respeaker […]
Biotech Hand Me Downs
This Thursday I’ll be helping move a confocal Leica microscope that a research lab acquired for $5000. How could anyone sell something so cheap? It’s very old and it takes up a lot of precious lab space. But it brings up a valuable lesson. If you are living in or near a city with a vibrant […]