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How to use an Oxford Nanopore MinION to extract DNA from river water and determine which bacteria live in it External links to this page by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16- 2021-03-25: Oxford Nanopore Technologies retweeted this article, that's awesome!
- 2021: hackaday.com/author/wd5gnr1/ "SEQUENCING DNA FOR METAGENOMICS" by Al Williams (2021). This came after Ciro Santilli self promoted at: stackoverflow.blog/2021/02/03/sequencing-your-dna-with-a-usb-dongle-and-open-source-code/#comment-1411921
Includes its own copy of sqlite3, you don't use the system one, which is good to ensure compatibility. The version is shown at: github.com/mapbox/node-sqlite3/blob/918052b538b0effe6c4a44c74a16b2749c08a0d2/deps/common-sqlite.gypi#L3 SQLite source is tracked compressed in-tree: github.com/mapbox/node-sqlite3/blob/918052b538b0effe6c4a44c74a16b2749c08a0d2/deps/sqlite-autoconf-3360000.tar.gz horrendous. This explains why it takes forever to clone that repository. People who don't believe in git submodules, there's even an official Git mirror at: github.com/sqlite/sqlite
It appears to spawn its own threads via its C extension (since JavaScript is single threaded and and SQLite is not server-based), which allows for parallel queries using multiple threads: github.com/mapbox/node-sqlite3/blob/v5.0.2/src/threading.h
Hello world example: nodejs/node-sqlite3/index.js.
As of 2021, this had slumped back a bit, as maintainers got tired. Unmerged pull requests started piling more, and
better-sqlite3 Node.js package started pulling ahead a little.- github.com/mapbox/node-sqlite3/issues/1381
FATAL ERROR: Error::ThrowAsJavaScriptException napi_throwwith Node.jsworker_threadsvsbetter-sqlite3Node.js package github.com/JoshuaWise/better-sqlite3/issues/237
Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings by Adam Curtis (1996) by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16 Oxford Master Course in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16Isomers were quite confusing for early chemists, before atomic theory was widely accepted, and people where thinking mostly in terms of proportions of equations, related: Section "Isomers suggest that atoms exist".
Microwave only found applications into the 1940s and 1950s, much later than radio, because good enough sources were harder to develop.
One notable development was the cavity magnetron in 1940, which was the basis for the original radar systems of World War II.
How Microwaves Work by National MagLab (2017)
Source. A bit meh. Does not mention the word cavity magnetron!Tried a quick port to SQLite to get rid of annoying local databases for development, but failed, at c1c2cc4e448b279ff083272df1ac50d20c3304faandthen:fails with:Attempt to hack it:and after that it seems to run.
npm install sqlite3 --save-dev{
"type": "sqlite",
"database": "db.sqlite3",
"entities": ["src/**/**.entity{.ts,.js}"],
"synchronize": true
}npm startDataTypeNotSupportedError: Data type "timestamp" in "ArticleEntity.created" is not supported by "sqlite" database.--- a/src/article/article.entity.ts
+++ b/src/article/article.entity.ts
@@ -20,10 +20,10 @@ export class ArticleEntity {
@Column({default: ''})
body: string;
- @Column({ type: 'timestamp', default: () => "CURRENT_TIMESTAMP"})
+ @Column({ default: () => "CURRENT_TIMESTAMP"})
created: Date;
- @Column({ type: 'timestamp', default: () => "CURRENT_TIMESTAMP"})
+ @Column({ default: () => "CURRENT_TIMESTAMP"})
updated: Date;I can signup and login, terrible error reporting as usual, make sure to use long enough usernames/passwords.
However, article creation fails with:
Unhandled Rejection (TypeError): Cannot read property 'slug' of undefinedFabry Perot Interferometer by JFC UCL (2016)
Source. Description only, reasonable animations. Considers the case of two nearby beam splitters.Fabry-Perot Introduction by Williams College Physics (2020)
Source. Shows a working device. Confocal optical cavity, one of the mirrors scans back and forward moved by a piezoelectric motor, this is called a "scanning Fabry-Perot interferometer".
Does not produce an interference pattern, only an on/off blob, which is then fed into an oscilloscope for analysis. The oscilloscope shows both the mirror displacement (which is given by a voltage) and the light detector output.
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.
Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact