csmsdust
more than repetitions 26 f
213 posts
Latest Posts by csmsdust
i miss these kinds of visuals for websites. RIP
i miss these kinds of visuals for websites. RIP
Crowd Vortices
The Feast of San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain draws crowds of thousands. Scientists recently published an analysis of the crowd motion in these dense gatherings. The team filmed the crowds at the festival from balconies overlooking the plaza in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Analyzing the footage, they discovered that at crowd densities above 4 people per square meter, the crowd begins to move in almost imperceptible eddies. (Image credit: still - San Fermín, animation - Bartolo Lab; research credit: F. Gu et al.; via Nature) Read the full article
Trying to do research on time
Physicists; uh yeah, space and time are one but we don't really know what they are actually, we use this highly specific magic crystal tho here have it
Neuroscientists: yeah, we also use the same crystal, but it doesn't matter because you don't experience time like that, we don't know
Some guy in 19th century, yeah time is not internally generated it is out there and you get it from the outside?? And then the idea took over the Europe
?? ? ?
Some neuroscientist: time doesn't exist, it's all happening at once, you brain is a time machine (the title of the book actually , one of my favorite)
Some other physicist: you're right, time doesn't exist in physics it's the humans that order things
?
Gravity?
What are we looking at?
About a month ago I was presenting at the annual conference of the Dutch Physical Society Fysica 2021. Now, I got the June issue of their magazine, in which they look back at the highlights of the conference. I was in a good company indeed!
In the Young’s Speakers Contest I ended up closely second with 34% of the votes from the 700 people listening to the story of my research. (The winner got 38%.)
Although I did not win the contest, I was presenting at the same stage with two Nobel Prize winners in Physics and got a brilliant response from the audience. This meeting will for sure stay in my memory and the magazine page goes directly on a display in my home office. I am immensly proud of myself and take this achievement as a great motivation to keep doing what I love — high quality research.
Recording of the whole virtual meeting via the link below. If you are curious about my work, jump to the presentation at 01.37.19 – Adela Melcrova: ‘No pores: The unexpected physics of a new antibiotic’. https://www.fysica.nl/
Cell cultures... pluses and minuses
– You need to come every other day to feed them, otherwise they die or differentiate. – You have to come on weekends too. – If you are not super super careful, some bacteria or yeast will eat them up. – Even if you are super super careful, some bacteria or yeast will sometimes eat them up. – In experiments, there are huge differences in the behavior of cells so you will have huge errors and have to repeat the experiments multiple times to prove your point.
+ You have to do it, so your other studies are tested on something alive and thus are proved relevant.
That's it. Nothing else to the + list. Cells are bitches. You have to nurture them and pamper them and sacrifice weekends, and then they die or behave unpredictably.
A Drop's Shape Effects
Falling raindrops get distorted by the air rushing past them, ultimately breaking large droplets into many smaller ones. This research poster shows how variable this process is by showing two different raindrops, both of the same 8-mm initial diameter. (Image credit: S. Dighe et al.) Read the full article
Cosmic clouds form fantastic shapes in the central regions of emission nebula IC 1805. The clouds are sculpted by stellar winds and radiation from massive hot stars in the nebula's newborn star cluster, Melotte 15. IC 1805 is located about 7,500 light years away toward the boastful constellation Cassiopeia.
Image Credit: Richard McInnis
Messier 42, The Orion Nebula
Credit: Alejandro López
https://www.marktechpost.com/2024/12/29/researchers-from-mit-sakana-ai-openai-and-swiss-ai-lab-idsia-propose-a-new-algorithm-called-automated-search-for-artificial-life-asal-to-automate-the-discovery-of-artificial-life-using-vision-lang/
There are many postdocs in academia, but not so many permanent researchers.
A new paper shows a statistics on where hundreds of Biomedical Sciences PhD graduates eventually ended up 10 years or more after graduation.
What strikes me there:
1. Sooo many postdocs go to administration positions after their postdoc is finished.
And it's true! I know so many people in administration who were good scientists before!
The following graph shows that from 418 PhD graduates, 325 went for a postdoc and 93 didn't. 145 administration/management/operation (AMO in the graph) positions in the end is for me a bit shocking.
2. The time for a postdoc in academia to actually get a permanent/non trainee position can be up to 13 years!
Only half of the people makes in in 6 years after OhD graduation. That's much longer than getting a permanent job in administration. I do not want to be 13 years postdoc. This is also one of the reasons people quit academia.
There are many more facts in the original article. Go read it if you're interested.
Feeling like a pro in Atomic Force Microscopy
...to be honest I probably should really tell myself that at this point I really am the professional in this method. After 4 years of working with 2 different atomic force microscopes, now I started with a 3rd one, again a new type from a different company.
Only after 2 hours of training on the new machine, I could observe membranes of resistant bacteria all by myself. The membranes are the yellow pancakes sitting flat on the dark support. They are less than 8 nm high (0.000000008 m), as is visible in the blue and red profile lines. So it's super tricky to actually see them. Atomic force microscope touches the surface of my membranes and surrounding support with a tiny tip like with a finger and reconstructs the surface topology. On top of the small size, the cellular membranes are super soft so also the touching finger must be super soft to see them without damaging them.
Walnut shells cut in half.
oblivious
A portrait in blood vessels. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is a specialised medical imaging technique used to visualise blood vessels. Here, tangled white tubes represent the major blood vessels of the head, neck and upper thorax. Looking at the uppermost portion of the image, one can see the silhouette of the brain whilst the aortic arch takes the center bottom. All these vessels are hard at work beneath your skin, even as you read this post.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1440-1819.2008.01821.x
Every time i’ve had to replant anything with serious roots and shake the dirt out i just can’t unsee the parallel
