Ancillary equipment: 1. Microscope. 2. Clicky counter-thingy. 3. Post-It note that reminds you of the formula. 4. A small graveyard of broken cover slips.
I'm using a hemocytometer for the first time tomorrow to count spores and was a bit unsure if I'd understood the textbooks and websites correctly. This video has confirmed I interpreted the info correctly, so thanks!
omg!! just came across your channel and it's amazing.Thanks a lot for uploading your videos.hi5 from one budding pharmacologist to a biologist.keep going and making such amazing videos.
+Belias Phyre It is a clean and reuse kinda thing! But the sample actually put on the hemocytometer cannot be reused. You only count a small portion of your total sample, so losing a little is okay.
It's an automatic cell counter. You pop in a slide and it does all the work for you! It's the tall beige thing in my tissue-culture room (in the lab tour video) by the microscope!
+TheWakimaniac first of all you count multiple squares and take the average of these counts, so missing a cell or two wont make a huge difference. secondly when you have a lot of cells in your solution there are two different ways to make counting easier. either you dilute your suspension and factor that in when calculating your cellconcentration or you use a "clickcounter" (yes, the same thing bouncers use to monitor how many people visit a club), where you press the button and the count goes up by one
This is awesome i love learning stuff, i never used one of these in school or any thing like other people that commented so its awesome to see new things. Do you have any standard rules you follow for you work? Like whats the number 1 rule for genetics?
You said you count cells in 4 squares (the 4 corners of the 9 square grid). Why not count in the 5th square in the middle too ? I'm thinking your average could be more representative. But to the same extent, why not count cells in all 9 squares? Different question: do you have software (or know if it exists) that counts cells automatically from a picture ?
+Costy Petrisor You could definitely count more squares and get a better average, but four is generally enough to get a good rough estimate for when I'm plating my cells. I certainly could get a more accurate average by counting more, but there's no need and it would be a bit of a waste of time. There definitely are different software packages that will do the counting as well, but as I mentioned in another comment, it's just faster for me to pop the slide onto the microscope and do it myself than it is to take a good picture, go over to the computer, open the software, etc if I'm only counting one or two.
+Alex Dainis Thanks for the answer :) about software, do you work with open-source software that is missing some features you would need ? or some feature is very slow to work with and it takes ages to "iterate" through your experiments workflow ? Can't promise, but will try to give it a shot :)
+altaroffire56 I think it might work! I have no experience with it, but google seems to imply it's a possibility. I would imagine big clinical centers have automated counters, however.
+erraticbrain When I use it irregularly for cell culture, I find it kind of calming. When I had to use it for hours at a time in one of my first year rotations, I had nightmares about this grid.
Ancillary equipment:
1. Microscope.
2. Clicky counter-thingy.
3. Post-It note that reminds you of the formula.
4. A small graveyard of broken cover slips.
*A small graveyard of broken cover slips.*
XD
Coool... I love "What Is This Thing?!" :D
Thanks again, Alex! Happy Sciencing...
Great video! Love the idea of individual videos about different pieces of equipment.
I'm using a hemocytometer for the first time tomorrow to count spores and was a bit unsure if I'd understood the textbooks and websites correctly. This video has confirmed I interpreted the info correctly, so thanks!
You are awesome! Love that you're making videos regularly again!
fabulous! Quick, correct, done! Using for my microbio class! THX
that's really interesting.
awesome vid! keep em coming! love the lab work, reminds me of back in the day when I did such work (was studying chem eng). love me some lab tech!
Helpful! I always used the disposable hemocytometers but just switched to a lab that uses these traditional ones and was confused.
this playlist is very useful, quick and simple I am waiting for more of it♥
just got out the lab myself. so glad we have an automatic counter. manual counting is the worst
omg!!
just came across your channel and it's amazing.Thanks a lot for uploading your videos.hi5 from one budding pharmacologist to a biologist.keep going and making such amazing videos.
thank you so much, so easy to follow!
I remember using one of those! Fun times!
verysimple explanation that i need! thanks
That's really cool!
This is great!
Cool. So is this a one time use sort of thing, or do you clean and reuse it? Is the sample discarded after use, or can it be reused as well?
+Belias Phyre It is a clean and reuse kinda thing! But the sample actually put on the hemocytometer cannot be reused. You only count a small portion of your total sample, so losing a little is okay.
I love this stuff! And there was some pipetting!
+vinny142 I'm so glad to hear that :)
Ah, the joys of measuring culture density.
Nice, Thank you so much 🌸🌸💕
So glad I've subscribed. It reminds me of my college days.. and how I can't wait to go back!
i´d love if you could mention who invented it and why in this series, a bit of history is always appreciated here.
Don't you also have a TC-20? Pretty sure I saw one in previous video.
+C0nc0rdance Do we have one? Yes. Did someone borrow it and manage to irreparably break it? Also yes.
+Alex Dainis
As my old graduate advisor was fond of reminding me: equipment costs money, extra grad student labor is FREE.
+C0nc0rdance May I ask what a TC-20 is?
It's an automatic cell counter. You pop in a slide and it does all the work for you! It's the tall beige thing in my tissue-culture room (in the lab tour video) by the microscope!
Do you do any bright field staining in your labs? If so, do you think you could do a video on it?
How often do you screw up counting? When I was in High School and had to count cells I had to re-count, like, 4 times.
+TheWakimaniac first of all you count multiple squares and take the average of these counts, so missing a cell or two wont make a huge difference. secondly when you have a lot of cells in your solution there are two different ways to make counting easier. either you dilute your suspension and factor that in when calculating your cellconcentration or you use a "clickcounter" (yes, the same thing bouncers use to monitor how many people visit a club), where you press the button and the count goes up by one
***** Thank you!
Nobody can do it like Alex can ;)
This is awesome i love learning stuff, i never used one of these in school or any thing like other people that commented so its awesome to see new things.
Do you have any standard rules you follow for you work? Like whats the number 1 rule for genetics?
+Lucas symons Ohhhh, what an interesting question. The number 1 rule for genetics.... I'll have to get back to you on that one. Very interesting.
+Alex Dainis Could be one of those things where you ask 10 people and get 10 different answers.
You said you count cells in 4 squares (the 4 corners of the 9 square grid). Why not count in the 5th square in the middle too ? I'm thinking your average could be more representative. But to the same extent, why not count cells in all 9 squares?
Different question: do you have software (or know if it exists) that counts cells automatically from a picture ?
+Costy Petrisor You could definitely count more squares and get a better average, but four is generally enough to get a good rough estimate for when I'm plating my cells. I certainly could get a more accurate average by counting more, but there's no need and it would be a bit of a waste of time. There definitely are different software packages that will do the counting as well, but as I mentioned in another comment, it's just faster for me to pop the slide onto the microscope and do it myself than it is to take a good picture, go over to the computer, open the software, etc if I'm only counting one or two.
+Alex Dainis Thanks for the answer :)
about software, do you work with open-source software that is missing some features you would need ? or some feature is very slow to work with and it takes ages to "iterate" through your experiments workflow ? Can't promise, but will try to give it a shot :)
Can you reuse hemocytometers or once you use one then you chuck them?
Reuse them :)
could you do a series for frequently used reagents ?
This is an *excellent* idea! Do you have any in mind you'd like me to start with?
If you're tired of counting the cells manually you can use computer vision! Search for "How to count cells using ImageJ" on RUclips
Cooooool!
but what tool do they use to meashure jail cells?
Should that unit conversion be 1,000,000 nl/ml ?
I wish there is a machine that counts it very effectively for you. I have glasses I have always problem by counting :(
And I thought those squares will just look red and we count them. But counting each one of those circles...
So it's used for flow cytometry?
you can use it instead of a flow cytometer :-)
Now I miss microbiology lab :.(....
OK super mam thank you somuch
Hello , Can I use this video for my website
If you're embedding it, sure! But please don't download and reupload.
why we would wanna know the number of cells anyway?
Neat!
👍
Your reflex blinking is asynchronous. Probably nothing but if there are other symptoms maybe get it checked.
Alternative use: To measure things that are small!
Very nice mamji
"Measurer... measurer... counter?" For some reason I found that line incredibly cute.
great
It looks like Goryaev's chamber, we have a similar devise in Russia.
Are sperm counts made in the same way? Yes, you are still counting cells, but I'm thinking that semen's consistency would impede capillary action.
+altaroffire56 I think it might work! I have no experience with it, but google seems to imply it's a possibility. I would imagine big clinical centers have automated counters, however.
Oh, it sucks that you still have to do the counting by yourself.
I like you and much more...
:D
we used a little counter-thingie in the lab but it was still pure repetitive horror staring this tiny grid for 40+ minutes (sorry for being a downer)
+erraticbrain When I use it irregularly for cell culture, I find it kind of calming. When I had to use it for hours at a time in one of my first year rotations, I had nightmares about this grid.
Do you like Conor McGregor?
The math is wrong, lol