Isabel

two short pieces of unistrut mounted vertically on a wall, with a horizontally mounted tube running between them, held on by plastic clips

it’s Tubesday! nvm it’s water line wednesday

#GlasgowInterfaceExplorer now has `spi-controller` applet properly documented! i've also implemented modes 0 thru 2 in the "modernized" version of the applet, as it turns out SPI is basically unusable without these across many devices […]

there’s kinda a common theme here - get higher resolution out of a cheaper microscope with redundant sampling and computation

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64133-3

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64133-3

4D-STEM-in-SEM is pretty neat! gold lattice images from a 20kV CFEG SEM, modified for STEM with a mini projector lens and pixelated detector. spherical aberration doesn’t limit resolution in ptychographic reconstruction, so you don’t need a probe corrector to resolve atoms

Researchers at UCLA show you don’t need a dedicated cryo-EM to get world-class results. Using an adapted entry-level TEM, they achieved 1.95 Å apoferritin—comparable to top-tier systems—pointing to a more accessible future for cryo-EM.
Read more: https://doi.org/10.1093/mam/ozae044.364

Diagram of a streak camera system

schematic from C16910 streak camera manual. this thing images light pulses down to ~800fs, by converting light to photoemission electrons, rapidly deflecting the electrons to spread out the pulse in space, and then converting electrons back to photons on a phosphor screen.

i threw together a new personal website: isabelburgos.github.io/site/. i uploaded some reference photos i took of the JEOL TEM I’m working on. if you like circuit boards, check it out. much more to come 🌱

i’m just finding about about 2025 being the year of the snake and i wish someone had warned me last year🐍🐍

Licorice allsorts, up close.

This is what sand looks like under a microscope. Amazing.

Bluesky is clearly the best platform because my feed is 90% ocean creatures 🐙 💜

Lucky you, Santa only brought me Schottky field emission for Christmas

still an electron microscopist but i’m quite interested in photons lately

two copper gaskets tied together, with four wires cross-crossed between them in a square lattice

conflat dream catcher 🤍

Then you answer "very small amount of 2-fold astigmatism, 20 degrees to vertical" and that's apparently the wrong answer.

noooo 🥲

aligning microscopes is a great way to practice for the part of an eye exam where optometrists ask “which is better, 1 or 2?”

Digital embroidery

FREE masterclasses in japanese joinery, electronic embroidery, and many others as part of our UCL Institute of Making Summer Festival of STUFF. www.instituteofmaking.org.uk/events

pan -> sauce -> [noodles -> ricotta -> sauce -> mozzarella] -> noodles -> sauce -> mozzarella

is this the optimal lasagna assembly?

Protect Federal Funding for Science and Technology Act now to support the optics, photonics, and STEM community that brings so much benefit to our society

I am happy to see @spie.org put out this call to action for advocacy in support of federal science funding

If you are American, please write to your legislators to encourage them to support the science/research enterprise. You can use the form at the SPIE link below, or write or call directly 🧪💡

Yellow and black sticker sheet

Yellow and black sticker sheet

Rare find for me - full set of Philips labels

Happy Saint Patrick!🍀

Meet Saccharomyces cerevisiae—the yeast behind beer!🦠It ferments sugars into alcohol & CO₂ in an oxygen-free environment.

At Bordeaux Imaging Center, Isabelle Svahn captured it up close using scanning electron microscopy!🔬

👉france-bioimaging.org/node/bordeaux/

Cat.

A value of 10KV has been entered in the high voltage preset box. Is this the value you'd like the system to ramp to ? Select YES to continue. Select NO to enter a new value Select CANCEL to ramp to the current setting of 30KV.

can you spot the UX issue here?

A clam with a spring attached to the shell. The spring has a magnet placed above a sensor.

Hardly new info, but BSky should know:

Warsaw's water quality is monitored by eight clams with magnets attached to their shells. If contamination in the water causes the clams to close, the magnets trigger an alarm and shut off the city's water supply.
Thank you, little guardian molluscs.

🧪🌏🚰

Stunning fluorescence and EM imaging makes for a powerfully short title: "Passage of the HIV capsid cracks the nuclear pore". Just out in @cellcellpress.bsky.social: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

oops, misplaced some bits

Tubular incomplete specimens of Eopriapulites sphinx from the early Cambrian Kuanchuanpu Formation, showing their VNC. C) ELIXX118-96, incomplete trunk showing both sides of the body (one with unpaired VNC). (D) Close-up of (C) showing unpaired VNC near bursa (white arrowheads), longitudinal folds, and bilobate aspect of VNC that vanishes posteriorly. Scale shown is 250 microns

Burgess Shale-type early to mid-Cambrian scalidophorans with VNC. J) Mafangscolex yunnanensis (ELIJS0055), general view showing gut (dark strip) and VNC (thin line with white arrowheads); note tiny longitudinal wrinkles on VNC. Scale is 1 mm

VNC in living priapulids. (A) Priapulopsis australis, posterior part showing annulated body and longitudinal VNC. Scale is 1 mm

Taphonomic scenario to explain the preservation of the VNC in Cambrian scalidophorans, in the case of preservation via secondary phosphatization (left) or compression (right). (A) Body wall of living scalidophoran (exemplified by priapulids) showing cuticular, epidermal, and muscular (circular, longitudinal) layers in transverse section. (B) Post-mortem modification including possible shrinkage and cuticular micro-folding. (C) Rapid decay of muscles tissues and epidermal cells (VNC might decay less rapidly, but eventually disappeared). (D) Phosphatization of the cuticle that replicates the relief of the VNC (as seen in Kuanchuanpu specimens). (E) Compression in sediment. (F) VNC preserved as a carbon film and/or pyrite (as seen in Chengjiang fossils). (G) Exuvia (as seen in Ottoia); the only organic remains are cuticular micro-folds between annuli and along the VNC resulting in ladder-like features. Not to scale. an, annulus; cu, cuticle; ep, epidermal layer; mf, cuticular micro-folds, st, strip.

Absolutely wild evidence of 535 million year old fossil ventral nerve cords in moulting worms. Really cool paper, I had no idea the nerve would preserve as part of the external cuticle (as clearly seen in first image, and explained in last image) 🧪🦑⚒️

www.science.org/doi/full/10....

simply having a wonderful Christmas TEM

Hey scientists!

Want to share your science with classrooms via video chat in 2025?

Sign up for @skypeascientist.bsky.social!

You can volunteer to chat with 1-5 classrooms between January and August. It's easy, it's fun, it's life-affirming.

Sign up
www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

🦑 🧪

blue electrons 🦋