science babble
Aug. 23rd, 2007 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asimplechordSlacking at work. I'm doing a pulse-chase experiment, and the last time point won't be collected until after 8pm. There's surely something productive that I could be doing, but I'm not feeling the urge to do a lit search or busy-work to keep myself occupied.
Today's experiment? Required the most radioactivity I've ever used in a single experiment. 2.5 milliCuries of [S-35]-methionine. Probably 90% of the label will end up in the trap for contaminated medium, leaving the rest in my cell pellet. Of the total cellular proteins, the one I'm looking for is maybe 1%. So, yeah, in terms of signal, I'm expecting f*ck-all. And given the results I got in yesterday's experiment, I'm wondering now if there was a flaw in this experiment's design. You've gotta love that, when you start an experiment, and in the time between the start of the procedure and data acquisition, you learn something that suggests maybe the thing you started wasn't the way to go. Oops, too late!
Also. It does not make me feel confident, knowing that the geiger counter is inefficient at detecting S-35, and I could inadvertently spread it all over the lab. I wish all radioactivity *did* glow in the dark, as one of my young cousins once told me it did. (I had a good chuckle over it at the time.)
*sigh*
*eyes clock*
I think I'm going to go contemplate my Bull Durham fic. And have some coffee.
Today's experiment? Required the most radioactivity I've ever used in a single experiment. 2.5 milliCuries of [S-35]-methionine. Probably 90% of the label will end up in the trap for contaminated medium, leaving the rest in my cell pellet. Of the total cellular proteins, the one I'm looking for is maybe 1%. So, yeah, in terms of signal, I'm expecting f*ck-all. And given the results I got in yesterday's experiment, I'm wondering now if there was a flaw in this experiment's design. You've gotta love that, when you start an experiment, and in the time between the start of the procedure and data acquisition, you learn something that suggests maybe the thing you started wasn't the way to go. Oops, too late!
Also. It does not make me feel confident, knowing that the geiger counter is inefficient at detecting S-35, and I could inadvertently spread it all over the lab. I wish all radioactivity *did* glow in the dark, as one of my young cousins once told me it did. (I had a good chuckle over it at the time.)
*sigh*
*eyes clock*
I think I'm going to go contemplate my Bull Durham fic. And have some coffee.
