The default powerpoint template almost certainly is not what you want to use. But it is easy to make a new default template to suit your needs. Here is how...
Continue reading "Make a customised default Powerpoint template"
Ever wish you could make your own "auto shapes" - want something different like a coloured square with a circular cutout that shows things in layers behind... Powerpoint includes this capacity but Micro$oft hides it from you. This post shows you how to activate this function and use it.
Continue reading "Powerpoint tips: Combining shapes"
A common problem with photomicrography is a section that is not totally flat so parts of it are out of the plane of sharp focus. For example here is a section with a wrinkle where a blood vessel altered the consistency of the wax and led to poor flattening of the section on the slide:
When looking through the microscope we can compensate by focusing up and down, and we can do much the same with digital image processing using a "focus stack". Here are some photos I took of the same section without moving the stage, but with a series of focus steps from furthest to nearest (I am showing every second image, to save space whilst giving you the idea... starting with image 1 above...
Continue reading "Focus stacking for photomicroscopy"
One of my pet irritations is making a numbered list and discovering that the numbers seem to arbitrarily change font. eg 1. This is point 1 2. this is point 2 3. this is point 3 Easy Solution: ... Continue reading "Tips: Numbered Lists in Word"
I came across some data from the National Science Foundation in the US. They surveyed ~2000 members of the public in 2012 (but there is also data going back to the 1980s) with some simple questions assessing basic science knowledge. Here are some of the questions and the proportion of respondents getting them right:
| Question | % answering correctly |
| How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun: one day, one month, or one year? | 55% |
| Electrons are smaller than atoms. | 53% |
| Lasers work by focusing sound waves. | 47% |
| Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria. | 51% |
| Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals. | 48% |
Given these were either true/false or 3 options one might expect a random answer to be correct 50% or 33% of the time. I guess this summarises a dismal failure in the education system.
Greg has send us the following: Before and after plover eggs, pics taken a few days apart. :-)
 |
 |
If you want to create drawings like the one to the right using a program you already know how to use, this tutorial may help you. Powerpoint is not ideal for this sort of drawing, but it is easier than Inkscape (free) or Adobe Illustrator (very expensive), since you already know how to drive powerpoint. No new user interface to learn, just a few tricks and tweaks to get the head around.
My tutorial will take you through the key steps in generating this illustration of a newborn wallaby attached to a teat in the pouch. I will show how to generate the base by tracing the outlines from a photo, and then how to embellish this with fills and shading to get a reasonably 3-D appearance.
Continue reading "Converting photos to powerpoint with lines and shading"
Reproduction and development in health and disease, sex determination, sexual differentiation, epigenetics, molecular and hormonal regulation of gonad and phallus development, embryonic diapause, comparative genomics and transcriptomics, innate immunity in developing young, limb development.
More details on the research interests of the group are at http://renfreeshawlab.biosciences.uom.org.au/current-research-projects/.
We have a very productive research group with over 80 papers published since 2010 and expect that our MSc and Hons students will be able to publish their research work.
Many of our MSc and Hons graduates have gone on to further study including PhD research, medicine, veterinary science. Others have gone on to a wide variety of life-science related employment.
Professor Marilyn Renfree has been honoured with the award of a 2015 Eureka Prize:
Winner: Professor Marilyn Renfree AO, University of Melbourne
What can wallabies tell us about our own reproduction?
Professor Marilyn Renfree’s team at the University of Melbourne study marsupials such as wallabies to understand human reproduction and development.
For three decades of inspirational mentoring of young researchers, particularly women, Professor Renfree has been awarded the University of Technology Sydney Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers.
She takes on the heavy lifting so that her researchers can concentrate on the science. In her own words she is “an umbrella to protect them from the day to day trivia that gets in the way of the exciting thing that is discovery of science.”
“Professor Renfree’s own research – into platypus and wallaby genes – and policy advice is extremely impressive,” Kim McKay AO, Executive Director and CEO of the Australian Museum said. “However it is clear that she sees her students as her most enduring legacy in science,” she said.
Professor Renfree’s achievements as a mentor and leader include:
Established in 1827, the Australian Museum is the nation’s first museum and one of its foremost scientific research, educational and cultural institutions. The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes are the most comprehensive national science awards, honouring excellence in Research and Innovation, Leadership, Science Communication and Journalism, and School Science.
The other finalists were:
Watch the video.
For more information about all the winners visit australianmuseum.net.au/eureka.
- See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/media/2015-eureka-outstanding-mentor-of-young-researchers#sthash.eCrHSh0P.dpuf
- See more at: http://australianmuseum.net.au/2015-eureka-prizes-winners
I recently tried to open an old ppt file, only to discover that Micro$oft no longer supports 
opening of PPT 95 and earlier. Sigh! Alas, the current Open Office also failed to open the file (open office usually manages file conversions that Microsoft fails; I could always hunt out an older open office installation and load it on a virtual machine, but that seemed like overkill for a single file conversion). Fortunately there is an easy way to open these old files, that I found on this page. It provides explanations and links to a free file conversion service offered by Zamzar. I gave it a whirl and it worked like a charm. Only one issue - I asked it to covert the old PPT file to the new PPTX format, and it failed. I tried again, asking conversion to PPT (1997-2003) format and it worked (current powerpoint 2010 that I use will open ppt 1997-2003 format files), so I opened and re-saved in PPTX format for good measure.
The Zazmar conversion service also supports a plethora of other format conversions including:
PDF to Word | PDF to Excel | FLAC to MP3 | DOC to PDF | MP4 to AVI | MP4 to MP3 | M4A to MP3 | WAV to MP3 | MKV to AVI | WMA to MP3 | JPG to Word | XPS to PDF | FLV to MP4 | AVI to MP4 | MKV to MP4 | AVI to MP4 | FLV to AVI | DOCX to PDF | MOV to AVI | MP3 to OGG | PNG to JPG | TIFF to PDF | AIFF to MP3 | JPG to PNG
They claim to support over 1200 file formats, so you are not likely to have some format they cannot convert (and if you do, you can email them and their software engineers will have a look).
Number of posts found: 55