That time I might have had COVID I was pretty ill in February 2020. I had an upper respiratory infection that turned into what felt like the worst pneumonia of my life. I was in my mid-40s and fairly healthy, but this thing, whatever 2023-09-29 #SEM #Milly
Time for new things Farewell, Unit 16 Like many projects, Unit 16 was a casualty of the pandemic. We had a great run (started Unit 15 in 2009, continued in a new location in 2018, up to sixteen active members at our peak 2023-09-24
BioGraph goes Open Source After more than five years in commercial development, Spiral Genetics has released version 7 of our BioGraph genomic analysis platform. It’s now free for academic use and the full source is up on GitH 2021-07-15 #genomics
Here be Dragons: Gaps in the human genome Know thyself The Human Genome Project formally began in 1990 and was declared complete in April 2003. After thirteen years and billions of dollars, researchers produced a sequence of more than 3 billi 2021-07-15 #genomics
Spiders, spinnerets, spigots, and silk I’ve seen many fascinating things under the scanning electron microscope. Pollen, various crystals, diatoms, and even viral particles. But nothing could have prepared me for the Fall of 2019, when I d 2021-03-14 #SEM #Milly #spiders
SEM beam alignment: The Happy Place Aligning Milly’s electron beam is tricky business. It’s a process involving hours (or even days!) of pain and uncertainty that might, just possibly, result in a better microscope imaging experience. T 2019-06-27 #SEM #Milly #microscopy
Porcelain, Tungsten, and other yaks Yak shaving: Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.—Wiktionary I didn’t realize just how lucky I wa 2019-01-06 #microscopy #materials