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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Science Magazine @science.org · 05/06/2026

Science named the seemingly unstoppable growth of renewable energy worldwide as the 2025 Breakthrough of the Year. Learn more about last year's #BOTY on #WorldEnvironmentDay: scim.ag/4pbMoAv

Qianjiadong Reservoir in southern Hunan, China

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Smartphone-based super resolution🔬 Microscopes are generally costly equipment, limiting availability in remote areas Can we make a high-quality microscope cheaply? This paper makes that vision more real tinyurl.com/defxwzjf With a cost below 350 euros, it delivers single-molecule sensitivity

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Microscopy building day 7-9 First images and final checks We finally have a working microscope 🔬 After installing the camera, we tackled hardware software communications using @micro-manager.bsky.social Then we performed usual checks: 1) fluorescent marker 2) scale bar 3) bead solution (PSF)

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Christophe 🔬 Leterrier @christlet.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

We have a new review out! In this Microscopy & Microanalysis piece, Louisa Mezache and I survey some of the latest commercially available microscope technologies: Nikon NSPARC, Re-scan Gaia, CSR Biotech MI-SIM, refinements to STED, SMLM from Bruker and Abbelight… Check it out with free access:

academic.oup.com

Advancing Super-Resolution Microscopy: Recent Innovations in Commercial Instruments

Abstract. Super-resolution microscopy techniques have accelerated scientific progress, enabling researchers to explore cellular structures and dynamics wit

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Nature Methods @natmethods.nature.com · 14/05/2025

A universal AI-powered pipeline enables precise 3D analysis of cell morphology and topology within organoid structures. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Stacey Ogden 🦔 @labogden.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

I never imagined I would see something like this happen to federally funded research in the US. I am heartbroken for all the researchers whose grants have been terminated and devastated for all the patients whose current (and future) treatments are being impacted 🧪 💔

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

How we analyze porous network @rochalab.bsky.social 🔬🧪 1) Adaptive thresholding 2)Distance map calculation 3)Watershed transformation 4)Quantification 5)3D rendering Code : github.com/BorisLouis/S... Paper: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a... #Microscopy #Optics #SciComm #ImageProcessing

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Good observation! Yes in this state it would be an issue, we just finished the alignment, we will run a few test and check the imaging before finalizing the setup which include making protection around the system 🙏

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

I think one is from Saruman and the other from Sauron? Not sure what is the use of Saruman's one though 😅

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 28/04/2025

Deaths from heart disease down 75%, that’s NIH. Deaths from stroke down 75%, that’s NIH. HIV/AIDS no longer a death sentence, that’s NIH. 99% of FDA approved drugs in the last decade, that’s NIH. Please show this video to anyone who doesn’t understand why the NIH is so important.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

1) two vertical support rods, simple Thorlabs posts that reminded us the Two Towers from Lord of the Rings. 2) A fully caged system giving a high rigidity to the setup and reinforcing the stability of the parts that are hanging in the air.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

But going upright comes with challenges, not only because it was our first time building such microscope: 📏 The objective lens has to be placed significantly higher to leave room for a sample stage below and potential illumination sources. 💥 That makes stability a real issue. ⚙️ Our solution:

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Most research microscopes are inverted 𝐒𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐮𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭? Because we’re working with photonic chips in which we have to couple an optical fiber in, quite accurately which is not possible with the sample upside down. ... and that means flipping the whole optical setup upside-down (literally).

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

🧙‍♂️𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐰𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬 – 𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 🔬 🧪 Meet our latest creation @hofkenslab.bsky.social and @rochalab.bsky.social labs: A fully custom upright microscope built entirely from scratch, with no microscope body and no commercial frame. #Optics #SciComm #Microscopy

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Their prototype uses a retractable plasma blade fuelled by compressed liquid propane and oxygen, reaching temperatures around 4,000°F, hot enough to cut through steel. 🤯 While it's not yet practical for duelling Sith Lords, it's a remarkable engineering feat.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐘𝐨𝐮 🔦⚔️ On this Star Wars Day, I revisited Hacksmith Entertainment Ltd. impressive attempt at creating a real-life lightsaber. If you are into starwars and science, you will probably have seen it ! youtube.com/clip/UgkxTLb...

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Alfred Millett-Sikking @amsikking.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

This looks awesome! A new open source optical design software! 😱 Has anyone used it? Is it good? 😁 optiland.readthedocs.io/en/latest/in...

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Having both high resolution structural information 🔬and functional information 🧪 (in this case, tension) is very challenging, very cool work! #Microscopy #optics

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

🔬Interested in imaging in energy science ?🔬 Chemical & Biomedical Imaging, a new journal from @acs.org, invited us for a special issue on 🔬𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 ☀️ ⚡ 🧪 And we made the cover ! 🎊 Thanks to @alexeychizhik.bsky.social for the amazing design #Microscopy #Optics #SciComm

Correlative imaging, Functional imaging, photoactive material, Correlation clustering imaging

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Nature @nature.com · 30/04/2025

This week on the Nature Podcast: In the face of massive upheaval, what is the long-term outlook for science in the US and beyond? go.nature.com/4k0pdH6

go.nature.com

The dismantling of US science: can it survive Trump 2.0?

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 30 April 2025

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Hello Prof. Grange! Would love to be included, here is my google scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?us... Also started to post about building of optical setup on this platform.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Hello Mike, Would love to join if there is still space ! Here is my google scholar: scholar.google.com/citations?us... Also started to post about microscopy here

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Hey, would love to be part of it Here is my google scholar scholar.google.com/citations?us... I am also starting to post regularly on microscopy building and data analysis

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Looking forward, will be in U.S. For the first time 🙏

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

My talk will focus on 3D mapping of dielectrophoresis and associated electrokinetic flows around quadrupolar electrodes using our 3D multiplane microscope. This is crucial as these forces and flows are important for applications but are equally difficult to characterize and so far unexplored in 3D.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

At this point, we are looking into the DEP response of nanoparticles around quadrupolar electrodes, where the idea is to characterize at which range of frequency different nanoparticles are attracted or repelled.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

To control the storage of nanoparticles in capillaries, we are using dielectrophoresis as the response of the particles (attraction or repulsion) depends on the frequency of the alternating electric field used.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I will be talking about Colloidal memory. The basic idea of the project is to test the possibility of making data storage devices in which nanoparticles are the carrier of information (particle A and particle B are the 0's and 1's), see the figure.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐧 @spie.org 𝐎𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 + 𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐬 🔬 🧪 I’ve been invited to give a talk in San Diego (US) in August this year! 🔬 If you are attending, I would love to connect arxiv.org/abs/2503.23839 #Microscopy #Optics #SciComm

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

In the video, you will see that we are working on another microscope in parallel, more on that next week! Also, stay tuned for Day #3, (hopefully) we’ll begin installing and tuning the lenses. #Optics #Microscopy #SciComm

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

✅ Third, we installed and aligned the dichroic mirror such that the reference laser is straight along the excitation path and added two diaphragms ~50 cm apart. Any laser passing through those diaphragms will now be at the center of the objective's optical axis

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

✅ Second, by adjusting the mirror below the objective, we created a straight line along the future emission path. This ensures that the light (image) collected by the objective will travel straight toward the detector. We also installed two diaphragms to serve as guides to align future optics.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

🔧 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞 – 𝐃𝐚𝐲 #𝟐 🔬🧪 ✅ First, we used the reference laser to project a perfect vertical line through the center of the objective holder. We marked a target on the ceiling for future alignments, an easy trick to save time later #Optics #Microscopy #SciComm

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

It’s inexpensive, easy to find, and has saved me countless hours. Highly recommend for anyone working on microscopes or custom optical setups. (Not an ad, just a genuinely useful lab tool) 🔍Curious, do you use any tools like this when building or aligning microscopes? #Microscopy #Optics #Scicomm

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

💡 Pro tip: Draw a target on the sealing where the vertical line hits above the objective. That target can be used in future alignments! I often even reverse-engineer microscope builds this way, starting at the objective mount with a perfect vertical and aligning all optical elements along it.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

It helps align optics by giving clear reference lines for both height and lateral positioning. But most importantly, it gives a perfect vertical line, which is incredibly handy when positioning objectives and aligning optical axes precisely.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

✅ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫: 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. One of the simplest and most useful tools I keep on hand when building or aligning microscopes is a 𝟑-𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 (e.g. Universal level 2 from Bosch). With a laser mounted on a pendulum, it ensures that the output lines are always straight,

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

🔧 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 🔬 🧪 How do you ensure the optics are aligned straight when building a microscope? For lasers, I often use diaphragms, but again, how do you ensure they are at the exact same height and lateral position? #Optics #Microscopy #SciComm

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

With a laser mounted on a pendulum, it ensures that the projected lines are always straight, even if the tool itself is not perfectly level. It helps align optics by giving clear reference lines for height, lateral and vertical.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

One of the simplest and mos✅ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫: 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. One of the most useful tools I keep on hand when building or aligning microscopes is a 𝟑-𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥 (e.g. Universal level 2 from Bosch). 🔬 🧪

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Reposted by Boris Louis 🧪🔬

Reuters @reuters.com · 17/04/2025

Harvard scientist Dr. Donald Ingber, who works where medicine and engineering meet, saw federal funding for some of his projects frozen this week as his university clashed with the administration of US President Donald Trump reut.rs/4jkmrfY

reut.rs

Science caught in crossfire of Trump's fight with universities

Scientists see long-term negative impacts on a tradition of partnerships between the government and university researchers dating back to World War Two.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Interesting for those willing to learn how to build microscopes 🧪🔬 #Microscopy #Optics

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I’ve found that this simple and cost-effective tool saves a lot of time in building microscopes as having a clear reference to which aligning most of the optics is extremely useful. www.bol.com/be/fr/p/bosc...

bol.com

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐛𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨, 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫. Using a level-laser, we get a perfect vertical centred around the objective holder. By drawing a mark on the roof where the laser hit, we have a reference to align lasers to.

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: Using two mirrors to guide the laser into a straight line, using two diaphragms as reference

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Boris Louis 🧪🔬 @borislouis.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Building a microscope from scratch can be significantly more challenging since we are not using a commercially available microscope body. In our first session, we started with the basics: aligning a laser line and positioning the microscope objective.

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