Catching up.
Mar. 24th, 2004 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI'm back, but still way behind. Various interesting things have happened, at work and with the writing project I'm doing and con-wise, and it's going to take me a while to get caught up.
At work: the selenomethionine protein project worked. After all that sweat and worry, we got crystals, and though they didn't diffract at our home source (the x-ray machine in the basement), they diffracted at the synchrotron, probably because the x-ray beam at the synchrotron is so much more powerful that spots that would have been too dim to register on the detector at home showed up just fine. The crystals degraded pretty fast in the x-ray beam, though, even frozen at -180 degrees Celcius, and we had to keep putting new crystals on. Fortunately we had a lot of crystals but it will make deciphering the data more difficult. I don't yet know if the data from these crystals will be good enough to be useful.
The native (regular) protein crystals worked. We had problems reproducing the diffraction we got at home, perhaps because the crystals from the later setups were smaller, but eventually got another drop that worked. We got a good data set at the synchrotron, spots to about 2.6 Angstroms.
Hie Xu (pronounced "hi, Sue"), our new post-doc arrived. He'll be working on the same project I am--in fact, I was originally hired because he was having problems getting his visa and Chris just couldn't stand having no one to work on the project for the eight-some-odd months that the process dragged out to. No worries, though--there is plenty to work on here to keep both of us busy. The down side was that I had to drag myself back to work the morning after I got home from the synchrotron to do useful things like make lists of where all the data and solutions and such are, and write out experimental protocols.
Writing project: I've been writing little sidebars for a physics textbook--the little one-paragraph-and-a-picture things they throw in to show how physical laws affect real life or make for cool technology. I'd been plugging along at the rate of one a week or so when the editor suddenly e-mails me asking if I can have the other half done by March 15th (a week away and the day I had beam time at the synchrotron). I e-mailed back a long complicated reply that boiled down to "Oh my god you want it *when*?" We worked out a schedule that had me finishing them today instead. Which I have sucessfully done (Cat pats self on back).
During the course of the long complicated reply I happened to mention the synchrotron and the editor said "yes! I want a paragraph on that!" So I contacted the synchrotron's publicity person, who said "Oh sure, we'd love to be in your textbook. And you want a picture? How about one of the facility seen from the air?" and promised to read my paragraph to make sure I hadn't made any stupid mistakes. When I e-mailed him the paragraph he e-mailed back saying "so are you a free-lance science writer? I'm looking for a science writer with a structural biology background--are you interested?" So maybe he'll have some writing work for me. I'm psyched.
The con: Echo's Children (me and Callie Hills--or Cflute) were Filk Guest of Honor at Galacticon in Chatanooga. This was great for me, as it's only about 2 1/2 hours drive away, and one of my friends could even give me a ride. I was definitely due some time off at work (I'm only supposed to work 30 hours a week, and by the end of the synchrotron run I was 70 hours ahead) so I took Thursday off for a rest, and drove down with Donald Friday. Callie had a harder time getting there--and back, alas. She wrote a song about her experiences which is at her livejournal.
The con was smaller than I'd expected, maybe 150 to 200 people, but I had a lot of fun. They put us in a hotel room right across the hall from our concert space and right next to the filk room. The soundproofing was good enough that I had no problem falling asleep when I faded before the filk circle did (which I usually do) and the Saturday night dance didn't bother me at all. The con folks put a case of diet mountain dew in my arms as I walked through the door and the con suite had food for every meal except breakfast, which the hotel handled. The concert on Saturday was intimate--we only had about 20 people--but the audience was receptive and appreciative, and happy to sing along as they picked up the words. The filk circles were rather small, so everyone got to sing, and there were some great performances. In general the con was quiet enough that there was time to talk--it was great to get to spend time with Quadrivium and Autographed Cat and Kitzani and Randy and Diane Walker and to chat with Michael Liebman (I hope I'm spelling that right--the Southern Fried Filk guy) across his well-stocked filk table. There were a few people from an irish session group in Chattanooga-- a fiddler named Robbie and a bodhran player named Sushi (well, that was on her badge) who used some of the same tricks LadyAT does with changing pitch and timbre and a couple of guitarists whose names I didn't get, alas. I got to see a violin mute for the first time--it's a little dohickey that kind of fits down over the bridge to make the violin quieter.
Unfortunately my back got worse after the synchrotron run. I suspect something about pulling an all-nighter and 10 hours of driving irritated it. It was pretty bad at the con (though not as bad as it was at GAfilk) and isn't any better now. So I've given up on attending FilkOntario--it's a great con but its something like 14 hours drive away and I just don't think that would be a good idea right now. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes.
G'night!
At work: the selenomethionine protein project worked. After all that sweat and worry, we got crystals, and though they didn't diffract at our home source (the x-ray machine in the basement), they diffracted at the synchrotron, probably because the x-ray beam at the synchrotron is so much more powerful that spots that would have been too dim to register on the detector at home showed up just fine. The crystals degraded pretty fast in the x-ray beam, though, even frozen at -180 degrees Celcius, and we had to keep putting new crystals on. Fortunately we had a lot of crystals but it will make deciphering the data more difficult. I don't yet know if the data from these crystals will be good enough to be useful.
The native (regular) protein crystals worked. We had problems reproducing the diffraction we got at home, perhaps because the crystals from the later setups were smaller, but eventually got another drop that worked. We got a good data set at the synchrotron, spots to about 2.6 Angstroms.
Hie Xu (pronounced "hi, Sue"), our new post-doc arrived. He'll be working on the same project I am--in fact, I was originally hired because he was having problems getting his visa and Chris just couldn't stand having no one to work on the project for the eight-some-odd months that the process dragged out to. No worries, though--there is plenty to work on here to keep both of us busy. The down side was that I had to drag myself back to work the morning after I got home from the synchrotron to do useful things like make lists of where all the data and solutions and such are, and write out experimental protocols.
Writing project: I've been writing little sidebars for a physics textbook--the little one-paragraph-and-a-picture things they throw in to show how physical laws affect real life or make for cool technology. I'd been plugging along at the rate of one a week or so when the editor suddenly e-mails me asking if I can have the other half done by March 15th (a week away and the day I had beam time at the synchrotron). I e-mailed back a long complicated reply that boiled down to "Oh my god you want it *when*?" We worked out a schedule that had me finishing them today instead. Which I have sucessfully done (Cat pats self on back).
During the course of the long complicated reply I happened to mention the synchrotron and the editor said "yes! I want a paragraph on that!" So I contacted the synchrotron's publicity person, who said "Oh sure, we'd love to be in your textbook. And you want a picture? How about one of the facility seen from the air?" and promised to read my paragraph to make sure I hadn't made any stupid mistakes. When I e-mailed him the paragraph he e-mailed back saying "so are you a free-lance science writer? I'm looking for a science writer with a structural biology background--are you interested?" So maybe he'll have some writing work for me. I'm psyched.
The con: Echo's Children (me and Callie Hills--or Cflute) were Filk Guest of Honor at Galacticon in Chatanooga. This was great for me, as it's only about 2 1/2 hours drive away, and one of my friends could even give me a ride. I was definitely due some time off at work (I'm only supposed to work 30 hours a week, and by the end of the synchrotron run I was 70 hours ahead) so I took Thursday off for a rest, and drove down with Donald Friday. Callie had a harder time getting there--and back, alas. She wrote a song about her experiences which is at her livejournal.
The con was smaller than I'd expected, maybe 150 to 200 people, but I had a lot of fun. They put us in a hotel room right across the hall from our concert space and right next to the filk room. The soundproofing was good enough that I had no problem falling asleep when I faded before the filk circle did (which I usually do) and the Saturday night dance didn't bother me at all. The con folks put a case of diet mountain dew in my arms as I walked through the door and the con suite had food for every meal except breakfast, which the hotel handled. The concert on Saturday was intimate--we only had about 20 people--but the audience was receptive and appreciative, and happy to sing along as they picked up the words. The filk circles were rather small, so everyone got to sing, and there were some great performances. In general the con was quiet enough that there was time to talk--it was great to get to spend time with Quadrivium and Autographed Cat and Kitzani and Randy and Diane Walker and to chat with Michael Liebman (I hope I'm spelling that right--the Southern Fried Filk guy) across his well-stocked filk table. There were a few people from an irish session group in Chattanooga-- a fiddler named Robbie and a bodhran player named Sushi (well, that was on her badge) who used some of the same tricks LadyAT does with changing pitch and timbre and a couple of guitarists whose names I didn't get, alas. I got to see a violin mute for the first time--it's a little dohickey that kind of fits down over the bridge to make the violin quieter.
Unfortunately my back got worse after the synchrotron run. I suspect something about pulling an all-nighter and 10 hours of driving irritated it. It was pretty bad at the con (though not as bad as it was at GAfilk) and isn't any better now. So I've given up on attending FilkOntario--it's a great con but its something like 14 hours drive away and I just don't think that would be a good idea right now. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, and we'll see how it goes.
G'night!
