iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Built and installed my winter wraps for the beehives. I'm trying greenhouse panels with a mat black liner to see if they perform better than coroplast panels. They're pretty toasty already, so I'm feeling good about them!

Two beehives with black plastic panels wrapped around them. Ratchet straps are holding the lids down.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Our newest preprint is up! Using super-res #microscopy we demonstrate that proteases and their ligands are localized to distinct microdomains in the plasma membrane. Cleavage-inducing stimuli breaks down the barriers between microdomains, allowing the protease and its ligand to interact.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For AI, it's a hallucination. For the rest of us, it's a pleasant dream.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I have nothing but fond memories of Print Shop Delux and our old dot matrix printer. You could design and printer as long of a banner as you wanted. And then you got to tear off the perforated edges.

static.klipy.com

Man's Happy & Satisfied Reaction

ALT: Man's Happy & Satisfied Reaction

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Happy #FluorescenceFriday. eSRRF reconstruction of actin dynamics in PMA-stimulated macrophages. Scale bar is 2 microns!

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Rage against the FACS machine. Today and everyday.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Same physics, but different way to get there. GSDM uses much more powerful lasers for depletion, which allows you to use a broader range of fluorophores than with dSTORM. With dSTORM, you're more beholden to picking fluorophores with desirable blinking dynamics.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Getting the gals setup for winter. Varroa treatment is done, the population looks good, and now I just need to feed them to make sure they have enough to get through winter.

Open beehive filled with bees. Two off-white rectangles (varroa treatments) can be seen at either end of the hive

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Happy #FluorescenceFriday! This is the cortical actin cytoskeleton of a macrophage imaged using eSRRF and @spirochrome.com's SPY555-FastAct_X.

image shows the web-like network formed by actin. Image is pseudo-coloured using a heatmap with red "dim" regions and orange-white "bright" regions.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

The reuse of the same backgrounds & blots across companies (often for different antibodies) is striking.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Our antibody providers are involved in the mass production and presentation of fraudulent western blot "validation" images. Scientists would be fired for dojng this - why do antibody providers get a free pass?

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Based on the settling times they measured for their aresols, we can estimate how large they were. And they wete quite big - >90% of their wet aresols settled in under a minute, making them 100 um or larger.

settled.in

Under Construction

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

You've lost me here. The study used Gordonia rubripertincta, not E. coli, and they didn't "track it down", they very carefully (and using a reasonably rigorous technique) aerosolized it at a set distance from their work area.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Their data quite clearly shows no effect for large particulates, but given how surface area to mass scales, you cannot assume the relationship holds for smaller particulates.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

No, my criticism is based on the typical size of droplets encountered in indoor spaces, which are mostly respiratory in origin. These are much smaller than the ones tested, and there would be more likely to be moved away from the work-surface (if Bunsen burners work as as claimed) /1

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I would argue that this paper doesn't show what it claims, mostly as they used particulates an order or two larger than those normally encountered in the lab. You don't test tennis nets by firing bowling balls at them - so why would you use "blowing ball" particulates to test a Bunsen burner?

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This article isn't the smal dunk some have sold it as. The particles they used were an order of magnitude larger than those commonly encountered in labs.

performed.by

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Speech generated aresols stay airborn for 8 - 14 minutes, e.g. 4-7 times longer than the particles used in this study. Ones generated by sneezing can stay suspended for hours. Without looking at particles of these more typical sizes, this isn't near enough data to support the papers claims.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I'm unimpressed. They generated very large and quick settling particles - much larger than typical airborne particles - and unsurprisingly, burners didn't work. Concluding that bunsen burners don't work IRL from than is like saying a tennis net doesn't work after firing bowling balls at it. /1

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Old-school photography is amazing stuff. I tried making some autochrome plates a few years ago...they were terrible, but i hope to revisit that again some day. After watching your video I want to do some stuff with pinholes, to get the "everything in focus" effect.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

That was very interesting. It would be interesting to see an autochrome under the SEM.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Similar. Based on Humbolt Fog, but made with goats milk.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I normally make basic cheeses, but every once in a while I make something fancy.

A white rind cheese with a wedge cut out. A line of black ash runs through the middle of the cheese.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I almost DNF'd The Will of the Many due to its "elite magical school" vibes. I'm glad I powered through, as the wprld building is fantastic, the ending is stellar, and book 2 is simply amazing.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Some very cool resesrch from Patrick Lajoie's lab here at @westernu.ca on morphogenesis in the pathogenic yeast C. albicans!

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

It doesn't help that "AI" has become shorthand for "generative AI", despite their being a lot of non-gen AI that are powerful tools and which lack the ethical issues of most genAI tools.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

A great story if you don't plan on nightmare-free sleep the next couple of days (also complimentary)

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

We're still a month or so away from actually being able to eat them. They need to cure first... ...technically we can eat it now, but it's quite mild, which more or less is the opposite of how I like my garlic.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

We had a good harvest of garlic this year!

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Wow, that would have worked a lot better if I put in the picture

Cover of "How to Make Cheese: Learn the Secrets to Successful Cheesemaking" by Jean Mansfield

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Recipe is from this book (it scales well if you have a lot of milk). I can't really recommend the book though as several recipes have major errors.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

We do a quick halloumi on those kind of days. I have a freezer full of it this year.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I've been looking at the same option, but haven't found anyone else using it for microscopy data.

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Reposted by 🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁

Jake Harris @c-jake-harris.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Excited to be able to advertise 1x postdoc and 2x technician positions to join my group in Cambridge working on an exciting ARIA funded project to help bring a plant artificial chromosome into existence! Reposts very welcome please 🙏 (1/2)

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Its always nice when Hase N Pfeffer (who lives under our front stoop) sees me off to work in the morning.

A wild rabbit in front of some evergreen trees

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

What were you expecting, the news sits to turn off their webpages for dramatic effect? The CBC website currently has 11 articles on this. If you didn't see one, you must have actively been not looking.

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

What are you talking about? CBC, CTV, and Global all had articles on it (CBC has multiple), and CBC at least had a segment on it during last night's The National (timestamp 14:30): youtu.be/zZhJXDayqhc?...

youtu.be

CBC News: The National | Trump promotes Iran peace deal

YouTube video by CBC News: The National

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Testing @abbelight.bsky.social Smart Kit Buffer in GSDM. Despite being made for dSTORM, it's giving the most amazing GSD performance I've ever seen - across Alexa647, Alexa555 AND Alexa488! #microscopy #GroundStateDepletion

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Spent the afternoon doing some ground state imaging. Always a good day when you spend a chunk of it on a #microscope!

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🍁 Bryan Heit, PhD 🍁 @bryanheit.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Went to do a hive inspection and had two nice surprises. My new hive has exploded in population and needed a second brood box, and I caught a swarm that I moved into a second hive! #bees

Two bee hives with a fence behind it. On the fence is hanging some burlap cloth

Closeup of thr front of two bee hives. A number of bees can be seen on front of each hive.

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