All Posts Tagged With: "Home Labs"

Excerpt:

Home Labs on the Rise for the Fun of Science
Wednesday, December 15, 2010

By PETER WAYNER, The New York Times

One day Kathy Ceceri noticed a tick on her arm and started to worry that it was the kind that carried Lyme disease. So she went to her home lab, put the tiny arachnid under her microscope, which is connected to her computer through a U.S.B. cable, and studied the image.

“It was,” she said. “Then of course I Googled what to do when you’ve been bitten by a deer tick.”

Ms. Ceceri’s microscope, a Digital Blue QX5, is one of several pieces of scientific equipment that make up her home lab, which she has set up on her dining room table in Schuylerville, N.Y. Home labs like hers are becoming more feasible as the scientific devices that stock them become more computerized, cheaper and easier to use. 

Ms. Ceceri has several microscopes and a telescope. Other home laboratories have tools like infrared thermometers, which can be used in the kitchen, and kits to analyze DNA at home.

Many of these tools work closely with home computers and come with software that enhances their power. Others mix low-cost computers into the hardware to deliver more precise control.

Some people who set up home laboratories are serious hobbyists in search of better tools; others are home-schooling parents equipping their children; and others are just curious.

 Ms. Ceceri, a writer, seems to fall into all three camps because she teaches her sons Anthony, 15, and John, 18, at home, and then she writes about some of their discoveries for a number of blogs like geekdad.com, geekmom.com and homebiology.blogspot.com.

 “This year we’re doing integrated science,” she said of her home science curriculum. “Anything we were looking at, we put under the microscope.”

 She explained that she and her children raised triops, tiny crustaceans, and examined the eggs under the microscope. “We took a really nice video of the paramecium and nematodes swimming around just holding a digital camera up to a microscope,” she said.

 Brian Haddock, a software developer from south of Fort Worth, who also writes about science topics on his blog, Reeko’s Mad Scientist Lab, particularly enjoys using a microscope with a computer.

 “Those U.S.B. microscopes are pretty cool,” he said. “They don’t magnify as much as one of those optical scopes would, but you can look at it on your computer screen. It’s got a big picture on your screen that’s easier to see instead of those little tiny images you squint at.”

 “Personally, I like the Carson zPix,” he said.

 The growth in home labs is helped by manufacturers who are building tools at affordable prices.

 ThinkGeek.com, an online store that sells items for home laboratories, among other things, offers three models of microscopes at various prices, said Scott Smith, a co-founder of the site.

Prices begin at $99, with models that offer 20x to 200x digital enlargements of whatever is being examined. The store’s high-end model costs $349, and it delivers what Mr. Smith characterized as sharper, better quality images for both hobbyists and businesses like jewelry shops.

Adding a computer interface to a telescope makes it possible to collect more detail than might appear to the eye looking through the optics. The computer can collect multiple images over time and combine the results, enhancing the appearance of the faintest items.

 “It isn’t just about capturing video or still images. It actually allows you to stack a whole bunch of still images to get those really beautiful, spectacular pictures of the night sky,” explained Timothy Burns, the director of marketing at Edmund Scientific, the scientific supplier, which stocks a wide range of telescopes for the casual and professional scientist.