July 28, 2016 at 04:23AM

Today I Learned: 1) ...how to use the software for the Victor plate reader. It's an older model, but it works. 2) When 3D-printing, it makes sense to have the printer head move slowly along the outside edge, and much faster on the infill*. The more slowly the head moves, the smoother the surface it will make, but it would take a lot longer to run everything at lowest speed, and the smoothness of the interior of a structure doesn't matter. Also, typcial infill for 3D-printed structures that don't have to be super tough can be quite low, like 10% low. * Infill is the material printed between outer walls. You *could* print objects to be totally solid, but that would waste a lot of material; similarly, you *could* print objects using only their outlines, but that would be quite flimsy. Infill is the stuff you use to fill between the outer lines, which is usually some sort of honeycombing pattern. 3) You can switch Cas9 from being a cutting protein to a DNA-binding-only protein (i.e., an activator or repressor) by switching its guide from a 20 bp RNA to a 14 bp RNA. I'm not sure how much I would trust this technique... but it worked for Kiani lab at Arizona State University, according to this abstract: http://ift.tt/2ac9MJP.