Recent content in MurphysLab.ca on Murphy's Lab
Dear Seaford: I hope that on Remembrance Sunday that you took the time to remember those who gave their time, their health, both physical and mental, their family’s wellbeing, their potential descendants, and even their lives to preserving your freedom. If not, perhaps you will pause for two minutes on the eleventh. Since I’m in Canada, I will be participating in remembering when I…
One simple experiment I have on the go has given me pause to reflect on the data — largely thanks to the time gap between finding the next point. But I’ve appreciated having an opportunity to stop and think about individual data points carefully. Not because the underlying data is that novel. Rather I’ve specifically considered how each of those data points affect my regression and the…
What Led to Reading Starter Villain Earlier this year I’d recently had my first exposure to John Scalzi’s science fiction writing. His name is regularly echoed in various science fiction forum threads, hence when I spotted his name on the spine of a paperback, sitting on the shelf of my city library’s tiny science fiction and fantasy section, I decided to give the book a chance.…
This weekend I wrapped up volunteering at a summer day camp for kids ages 5 to 12. The experience was a first for me, seeing a summer day camp of that type. While I’ve gone on many outdoor camping trips, I’d never experienced, neither as a participant nor as a volunteer, a summer day camp. It wasn’t really “camp”, as I’d understood the term, but more of a blitz…
Introduction Avoiding COVID… Until Now Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve been doing my part to flatten the curve, in accordance with public health guidance insofar as possible. Over the course of the pandemic’s evolution, this has involved social and physical distancing, limiting gatherings, limiting travel, additional hand sanitizing, mask wearing, getting vaccinated, and…
Once Upon A WordPress Originally this blog came to life on September 10th, 2009. It was my 3rd self-hosted blog effort and I’d been experimenting for a little over 1 year, having purchased 2 years of webhosting in the summer of 2008. My first blogs were very limited in audience scope: one being focused keeping friends & relatives updated while I was travelling overseas for 3 months; another…
A compilation of the digital presence of MurphysLab. Here you can find: Murphy’s Lab Notes, his blog. An academic bio. And several miscellaneous items.
A list of Jeffrey N. Murphy’s publications can be found on ORCID or on Google Scholar.
Genealogy is a pastime that I occasionally indulge in. There are some very fascinating stories to be learned about the history of one’s genetic forebearers, as the tale of ancestry interweaves with the movements of history. Discovering one’s family history requires investigative skills for combing through resources — many of which are online. Some of those (with Canadian content) are…
The trend toward intentionally ignoring data that does not agree with one’s biases only continues. A 2010 article from Scientific American discussing emails received by climate scientists: Trenberth* says that is the most dispiriting aspect of the e-mails: Facts don’t carry more weight in the public debate. The nature of public discourse - be it climate change or health care - has…
There are some really useful subreddits hidden away on Reddit and it can be a great place to get questions answered. AskScience is my favourite example. There are also a few more technical, narrowly focused sub-forums, so I wondered if there was one for ImageJ or Image Analysis. Sadly, neither exists. So I did what Reddit is meant to enable individuals to do: I created a subreddit, r/ImageJ. So…
You will find most of my shared code on my GitHub profile ADAblock (ImageJ) ImageJ Macros Macros posted for r/ImageJ forum ImageJ-Macros that I use LUT Inversion Test Onasch Grain code PAL numbers (Python) See: Persistent Archival Links: A Mystery in Base-30 SVG Gradient Cleaner (Python)
Twitter: MurphysLab ORCID: 0000-0001-9180-9187 Google Scholar: profile GitHub: GitHub.com/MurphysLab MSc Thesis: Electrochemical in situ investigation of thiolate DNA monolayers on gold with fluorescence imaging PhD Thesis: Analysis of Defects in Block Copolymer Thin Films
Kids are never the problem. They are born scientists. The problem is always the adults. The beat the curiosity out of the kids. They out-number kids. They vote. They wield resources. That’s why my public focus is primarily adults. [Source] Neil deGrasse Tyson, answering a question in his AMA on Reddit a few months ago: “Can we inspire more kids to pursue space-related science and…
Hints of Revolution Every time that I sign into Flickr, the digital revolution in science becomes apparent to me. One would expect this to be most realized through my daily accessing of science journals via the internet, however that is access to scientific papers, but not necessarily scientific information. Journals and publishers largely remain the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge, but here I…
This article explains how to create attractive, high-quality graphs in Inkscape using spreadsheet data from either Calc (OpenOffice.org) or Excel (Microsoft). Introduction Communicating information is an art. For scientists, even the most amazing discoveries can be rendered worthless if we fail to communicate them effectively. Despite being one of the most important aspects of science, it’s…
Some concepts are difficult to teach to students because it is something which you take for granted because it is so deeply ingrained. Chemistry concepts from first year university can be like that. But the most difficult experience in my teaching practice might have been this morning. It was difficult because each answer the student gave raised new questions about how much she was missing in her…
Jeffrey N. Murphy, PhD is a scientist who holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB. His thesis focused on the analysis of nanoscale defects in block copolymer thin films, during the transition from disordered to highly ordered states. Block copolymer lithography is a technology with the potential to revolutionize the patterning of computer chips for the semiconductor…
“An Introduction is to introduce people” so rather than to introduce my “Lab” I really ought to introduce myself. Well then, here goes: Hello, I’m Murphy, and I am a Ph.D. student. I’m student of science — chemistry in particular — and of life. I like to think about Questions, big and small. Being a “Lab” means that this is really about experimenting with ideas. Thought experiments?…