this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago

*very expensive beige box

[–] [email protected] 36 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

beige box where the magic happens

[–] [email protected] 34 points 23 hours ago

You'll need a PhD to be allowed to push the "on" button though.
And then go back to the office to write grant applications for a month.
To buy the next beige box.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I fix software on these things! No one ever quite gets what I do for work, it's nice to run across in the wild.

I feel seen lol

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Top left is a thermal cycler. Basically it heats and cools samples at a given rate. This is primarily used for generic PCR, and certain enzymatic reactions. Top right is the fancier version of this, it is for qPCR, so it can do the heating and cooling and has a laser/detector for the dye or probe that reacts to generating more dna with each PCR cycle so you can quantify approximately how much of the target DNA you had.

Bottom right is a luminex. This uses detection of fluorophore signals to measure multiple analyates, usually different proteins.

Idk what bottom left is.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Top left is the CFX96/384, which is also a qPCR instrument.

Bottom left is the 3500 Genetic Analyzer, as someone identified. It's used for sanger sequencing I believe. My last lab had one but I was never trained on it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I thought it was just their T100, the CFX96s I've used don't have the touchscreen but yeah the bigger "lid" does look like for the CFX.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

The bases and hot blocks are interchangable with that series. We recently upgraded to the Opus but our previous CFX96 had the T1000 touch base.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow, I know some of those words.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Allow me to translate:

Top left is a thermal cycler. Basically it heats and cools samples at a given rate. This is primarily used for magic. Top right is the fancier version of this, it is for qMagic, so it can do the heating and cooling and has a magic detector for magic components that reacts to magic happening so you can quantify approximately how much magic is going on in the beige box.

Bottom right is a luminex. This uses detection of magic signals to measure magic.

Bottom left is the beige box where magic happens.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

PCR, aka pipette, cry, repeat

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

This guy sciences.

Also username checks out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago

I know nothing about this kind of lab equipment but Google says the bottom left device is a human DNA sequencer, ABI model 3500.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Thank you, they sound really specialized!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Some kinda lab work, maybe blood chem or urinalysis. I should clarify that since I'm a software person I don't even know what they do, really, I just fix it when they stop transmitting lab test results to the database.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Getting the magic back to the magic analysis database got it

[–] [email protected] 23 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

But do you have magic box where the beige happens?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 22 hours ago

That's at home Depot.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Which beige box will turn me into a femboy?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Leave the bottle...

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago (4 children)

This used to be IT in the early 2000s

Beige as far as the eye could see (in a data centre)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago

I'm waiting for it come back in to style. I've pitched getting beige racks with this on the side https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_(design)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, I came here to air my hypothesis that lab hardware trends lag behind consumer computers by about 25-30 years.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

So it's almost time for teal, orange et other fun colors, mixed with translucent plastic lab équipement?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

In 5 years hardcore researchers will be modding their lab equipment and installing plexiglass glass sides. Just like I did to my PC in 1999-2000ish

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Are you saying there used to be woodgrain lab hardware?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

There definitely was. I've seen it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly, I think it was so ugly it was beautiful.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago

There is also this particular tone of light brownish green which is on so many industrial tools like drill presses, table top saws and so on. I kinda dig it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Were we still using 3.5” floppies in the early 2000s?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

Oh yes, I was using a 3.5" floppy disk drive with a USB connector in 2007 to kick off imaging on desktop machines as no one could get the ghost boot server working.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

Most of ours used to be white!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Johnny Ives would have gotten rid of all those nasty bevels.