Friday, January 7, 2011

how others see things ... easy when you know how















Sub-confluent, interphase Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) transfected with GFP-WT-MCAK (Mitotic Centromere Associated Kinesin) and grown in culture for 8 hours. 


Cells were fixed in PHEM buffer containing 4% paraformaldehyde, 0.05% gluteraldehyde, and 0.2% Triton X-100. Cells were then labeled with mouse anti-tubulin detected by goat anti-mouse Alexa 568 antibody. 


Cells were imaged on a spinning disk confocal microscope using a 60x 1.4 NA oil immersion objective lens on a Nikon Eclipse Ti equipped with Perfect Focus System and a Yokogawa CSU-X spinning disk confocal scan head equipped with a multi-bandpass dichromatic mirror (Semrock; Rochester, NY) and bandpass filters (Chroma; Rockingham, VT) in an electronic filterwheel for selection of GFP or Texas red emission. 


Excitation light provided by a custom-built laser combiner module (modification of LMM-3, Spectral Applied Research; Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada) containing 500mW solid state lasers (488 nm: Coherent; 561 nm: MPB Communications; Montreal, Quebec) that were shuttered with electronic shutters and attenuated and/or directed to a fiber-coupled output port with an AOTF (Neos Technologies, Melbourne, FL) and directed to the confocal scan-head via a single-mode optical fiber (Oz Optics, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). 


A Coolsnap HQ2 camera captured images with 200ms exposure @ 488nm and 400ms exposure @ 560nm.


http://cellimagelibrary.org/home

designing her personalized karmic index

the news on radio and television, good or bad, is almost always followed with a brief summary of movements in the main financial markets around the world

perhaps those not even moderately wealthy in spiritual and intellectual capital needs must measure our human condition in similar ways

therefore, in an altruistic surge of activity destined to improve the happiness of the entire human race, i am prototyping and developing the loved one's karmic index

of course, in the life of an almost perfect woman, karmic index movements are generally upwards, but uncharacteristic glitches may occur

for instance, when i returned to the master bedroom after an unplanned visit to the loo before falling asleep last night, i was deeply disappointed to find that she had carried on reading her terry pratchett and had not even thought of plumping my pillows

i shall be posting frequent re-assessments using a simple logarithmic scale with the daily to-do lists that i like to leave around the flat for her

it is for her own good

shiny stuff in the back streets off wandsworth road

















http://www.stonework.co.uk/

Thursday, January 6, 2011

joined up thinking ...























... nicely crafted connectors.

Monday, January 3, 2011

fluid mechanics ... the armitage shanks mystery


































at the national gallery there's an astonishing exhibition of paintings by "canaletto and his rivals"

and there's a smaller exhibition of some paintings by bridget riley

each shows the power of the human imagination synergized by the precision of the artist's perceptions and dexterity

then some of us can go to the gents where precision and dexterity seem to be unimaginably difficult for the males of the species among the museum-going public and the floors are rarther slippery

i still haven't received a penny !