Seeing Bacteria, Nanoprisms, and More with an Atomic Force Microscope
Unlike almost every other kind of microscope, atomic-force microscopes (AFMs) don’t use any kind of optical beam to image their subjects. Instead, they physically detect the subject’s surface with a tiny probe, repeating this thousands of times to build up a height map of the subject, sometimes with a resolution below a single nanometer. [Ben Krasnow] got to use an AFM in an investigation of one of his projects, and shared some unusual uses of it in his latest video.

For his first demonstration, [Ben] took a video of the probe head in action. Since the probe oscillates at nine kilohertz, this was less straightforward than it sounds, but a stroboscopic welding camera filming near that frequency could visualize its motion. The next project was to image some biological samples, particularly bacteria. First, [Ben] let the bacteria from nattō (fermented soybeans) multiply in a sterile growth medium, then centrifuged and washed them.
He spin-coated a thin layer of gelatine onto part of a silicon wafer, which provided a very flat substrate. The gelatine is electrostatically attracted to the bacteria, adhering them to the slide and letting [Ben] wash away other contaminants. This let the AFM image the bacteria clearly, even revealing how a spin-coating step had oriented them all in the same direction.
[Ben] also imaged a few other samples, including silver nanoprisms and track-etched membranes. Track-etched membranes use high-energy radiation and an etchant to cut very consistent, fine holes into a plastic filtration membrane. Finally, [Ben] used it to image his laser-etched diffraction gratings; to find out how the laser had created these diffraction patterns, he tried to selectively etch away the laser-exposed metal, using the AFM to verify that this metal had been stripped away. Neither an acidic nor a basic etch worked, but electrochemical etching seemed promising.
If after seeing this you want your own atomic force microscope, we’ve seen a few DIY AFMs, including one which can resolve individual atoms.

Thanks to [H Hack] for the tip!

34Audiovisuals RevenantDieA revenant never truly dies. It lingers, feeds on its own echo, and returns. RevenantDie is a spectral instrument built on that idea: at its heart lives a feedback delay network — four coupled delay lines stirred by time-varying rotation matrices, detuned by a random-walk warble, diffused through allpass filters and closed by a saturating, self-limiting feedback path. Left to itself the network refuses to fall silent; your job is to raise it, shape it, and decide how it decays. The same engine is coaxed into four spirits — an endless Drone that self-feeds forever, a struck Resonator that rings from MIDI notes, a spectral Haunt that captures and freezes incoming audio, and a raw Oscillator fed straight into the network. Feedback delay network engine — four coupled delay lines with time-varying rotation, random-walk warble, allpass diffusion and a saturating feedback path. Four voices from one engine: Drone (self-sustaining), Resonator (struck / MIDI-tuned), Haunt (reverberate & freeze audio) and Oscillator (sine-to-saw). Network macros — Drive, Damping, Motion and Warble — shape every voice. Amplitude ADSR envelope, global Width and Output, plus a license-interlocked soft-clipper that keeps the output under 0 dBFS. Two assignable LFO modulators — drag-to-assign onto any knob. Ships as two builds sharing the same engine: an Instrument version (MIDI / sidechain Haunt) and an FX version (processes its own track). 50 factory presets organised by voice, plus a user preset manager (.rvnt patches). Resizable UI (50%–200%) with per-voice accent colours; all parameters host-automatable. Time-limited fully functional demo — no feature restrictions. Activate on up to 2 machines with a single license. Read More

Bitcoin nears $63.5K into weekly close as trader warns of 'terrible' MondayBitcoin reached its highest levels in nearly a fortnight over the weekend, but BTC price action faced an "absolutely terrible" Monday track record.

Free Behringer Synth Editor Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides computer-based editing for a range of Behringer’s synths.

GetYourGrooveOn GYGODynamicsGYGO Dynamics is a two-sided leveler. Instead of one compressor threshold, it works both directions at once: it tames loud peaks down and lifts quiet passages up, toward a target window you can see and drag directly on a live map of your signal. We built it around one idea: loud and quiet problems aren't the same problem, so they shouldn't share one knob. Peaks get pulled down quickly and released smoothly; quiet passages get lifted more gently, using a slower, perceptual sense of level so the lift feels natural instead of pumping. Both sides are visible at once on the Dynamic Map — the loud ceiling as a red line, the quiet floor as a blue line — and you can drag either line right on the waveform to reshape the window in real time, or use the Tame Loud and Lift Quiet knobs to do the same thing numerically. Use it on a vocal that swings from a whisper to a shout and needs both ends brought into a controllable window without three plugins stacked to do it. Use it on a bus or a full mix as a gentle, program-dependent leveler that keeps quiet sections present and loud sections in check without obvious compression pumping. Use it on podcast or dialogue tracks where consistent perceived loudness matters more than a specific compression curve. And use the live map itself as a diagnostic — watching the white input trace against the red output trace shows exactly where and how much gain is being applied, moment to moment. Feature list: A live Dynamic Map showing input (white) against processed output (red), with two draggable threshold lines — the loud ceiling and the quiet floor — that you can grab directly on the waveform or control with the Tame Loud and Lift Quiet knobs (the two are the same parameter, so either always reflects the other); Speed and Stability controls that shape how quickly and how smoothly the leveler follows changing material; an overall Mix knob to dial the total strength of both upward and downward leveling; an Output trim applied after leveling; and real-time input/output level meters plus a live gain readout and transport clock on the map itself. Formats: AU for Logic Pro. Platform: macOS. Trial: 14-day full-function trial via GYGO Portal. Read More

New Google commercial imagines a Declaration of Independence written with help from AITwo hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new commercial asks: What if the Founding Fathers had access to Google Workspace?

Disk Polishing Goes Open SourceOptical media is great — it’s pretty high density, relatively durable, and decently long-lasting if
“That’ll buff out” is very often true when it comes to disks.
well cared for. If not well cared for, well, it’s only relatively durable, and we’ve probably all picked up a second-hand disk that’s too scratched to use. The X-Box 360 is notorious for causing circular damage, and while decent disk cleaners were easy to get in the 90s, we’re not sure how far we trust what’s on offer at retailers today. Hence [Dennis], aka [RetroGameRevival]’s RGR ezBuff polishing machine, which does exactly what it says on the tin: buffs disks to a polish, easily.
We’d say the whole thing is 3D printed, but of course you still need a motor and controller — if you had to turn a crank, that would just be a Buff polishing machine, no ez — and we’ve yet to see a printer poop out polishing compound. If you build it, keep in mind that you’re taking the top layer of material off the disk to polish scratches away, so don’t overdo it. It’s entirely possible to ruin a disk beyond repair with too-aggressive buffing; it’s also possible for disks to be scratched too deeply to save. Polishing can’t save genuine disk rot, though in our experience you’re more likely to find scratched disks than rotten ones. Still, [Dennis]’s birthday gift to the community — it was apparently released on his birthday — should keep more than a few disks out of the trash.
With Sony getting out of the disk game, physical media is becoming more precious than ever, so it’s good to see what looks like a quality polishing option for those of us who either never had a polisher or didn’t save theirs. If you really want your disks to last, maybe we should bring back CD caddies.
Thanks to [Dean] for the tip, via timeExtension.com.

Kraken lets traders use tokenized stocks as collateral for leveraged tradesEligible users can now use select tokenized stocks and ETFs as collateral for futures and margin trading without selling their holdings.

Rhodes to launch the MK8/80AE Limited to a run of just 80 instruments, the Rhodes MK8/80AE will feature a gloss-varnished black oak case, chrome detailing and a transparent hood, with each unit handcrafted in the UK by Rhodes Master Builders.

Ranking‌ Eve‍ry Bon J​ovi A⁠lbum, From Worst to B​estWith Bon Jovi returning to Madison Square Garden this July, we ranked all 17 studio albums using AllMusic's star ratings — from a 1.5-star contractual obligation to the 4.5-star arena-rock blueprint.

SOL rallies as Solana memecoins, prediction market activity surge: Are bulls back?Rising interest in Solana-network memecoins and prediction markets was followed by a rally in SOL price. Will the momentum continue?

The only AI glossary you’ll need this yearThe rise of AI has brought an avalanche of new terms and slang. Here is a glossary with definitions of some of the most important words and phrases you might encounter.

This KVM runs a P4 instead of a Pi.If you asked us to build you a KVM last week, we’d likely have reached for a Raspberry Pi. Now, thanks to [JonathanRowny], we’d seriously consider an ESP32-P4, because his IP KVM seems pretty capable.
He’s using the P4 hardware to its fullest, getting the supported 1080p graphics, and doing so in an interesting way– he’s got a commercial adapter board to try and translate HDMI signals to the camera input on his dev board. Conveniently enough, it’s the same ribbon-cable pinout as the RPi, which is not guaranteed by the CSI standard. Writing a driver to take that signal proved the hardest part– aside from the usual chip revision confusion that plagues this chip– and we can’t help but wonder if the client on the other side of the KVM-IP link might have an easier time doing the image processing that was required for a good image. Regardless, he’s got the code as it is now up on GitHub under the Apache license. 
As of this this writing, there’s no audio, and ironically for an ESP32 project networking is wired-only– but much more importantly, there is no security. So it’s a work in progress, but great to see the P4 in the wild doing something other than emulation. Not that we haven’t seen the P4 at work before–the Tanmatsu handheld also makes use of Expressif’s most powerful chip for a handy little terminal. Between the KVM and the handhelds, we cannot help but wonder how many of the projects that were once the provenance of a Pi will get squeezed into these overpowered microcontrollers. Sure, they can’t even match the original Pi in horsepower, never mind a modern Pi5, but how many times have you seen a Linux SBC seriously under-taxed in a project like this?
If you’re swapping Pi for P4– or doing anything else interesting– please let us know on the tips line.

Spitfire Audio SerendipitySpitfire Audio Serendipity is a sound library and multi-instrument step-sequencing tool designed to introduce controlled randomness and aleatoric variation into music composition. Devised by composer Joshua Meltzer as an expanded Pianobook Creation, the library focuses on unconventional orchestration by allowing users to cross-pollinate organic acoustic sound sources. The core architecture permits spontaneous cycling or complete random assignment of different acoustic instruments on every individual key strike or step trigger, allowing for unique hybrid textures that break conventional arrangement workflows. The engine includes 40 distinct instruments recorded in a home studio environment using Telefunken Copperhead, AKG 414, and Shure SM57 microphones. These sources range from traditional acoustic elements like autoharp, kalimba, music box, and pedal steel guitar to sound-designed assets including tape warbles, EBow layers, and granular pads. The integrated step-sequencing grid allows deep rhythmic and timbral customization, balancing structured sequences with adjustable degrees of parameter randomness to generate evolving melodic patterns and cinematic soundscapes. Presets are organized into two primary categories: Grid presets, which utilize the multi-instrument step-sequencer engine, and Pad presets, which focus on sustained, granular, and warped tape textures. Users can control the amount of algorithmic randomness applied to the playback, choosing between structured multi-instrument layers or entirely unpredictable instrument combinations across the pitch layout. Key Features 40 Organic Acoustic Instruments: Includes autoharp, kalimba, music box, pedal steel guitar, and custom sound design layers. Aleatoric Engine: Allows random instrument assignment per key strike, with scalable parameters to control the degree of randomness. Step-Sequencing Grid: Integrated multi-instrument sequencing matrix for hybrid patch design and rhythmic evolution. Dual-Category Preset System: Categorized into Grid patches for rhythmic layouts and Pad patches for granular, atmospheric textures. Triple Microphone Configuration: Clean capture of acoustic sources using distinct microphone models (Telefunken Copperhead, AKG 414, Shure SM57). NKS Compatibility: Native Kontrol Standard implementation for deep integration with Native Instruments hardware controllers. Compatible with free Native Instruments Kontakt Player or Kontakt Full (version 6.7.0 or higher). Delivery Format: Download via Spitfire Audio App (Approx. 4.77 GB installation size; 5 GB storage space required). YouTube/AqlVjyaR7JA Read More

London Symphony Orchestra upgrade LSO St Luke’s LSO St Luke’s have recently launched brand new recording facilities as part of a multi-million-pound investment in the their creative and technical infrastructure.