AI is crying out for regulation, while virologists doing gain-of-function research take the opposite tack. Why?
2 days ago in Genomics, Medicine, and Pseudoscience
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This technique also seems to beat NMR in terms of sample requirements. The femtogram mention in the abstract is a bit absurd -- I'm sure it's impossible to reliably move and track fg flecks of powder from your sample to EM grids, but even if this technique can work on micrograms (or less), it might beat NMR by a few orders of magnitude.
ReplyDeleteIt's common to pipette a few uL of solution directly onto a TEM grid and let it dry. Atto or femptograms is about right.
DeleteAlso, they did not analyze oils.
ReplyDeleteWould a thin layer of oil on the grid work?
DeleteI'm no expert on this so I cannot say... But they did not analyze any. Seems that you need a crystal lattice of some kind. Perhaps you can freeze it before analysis, though I don't recall at what temperature this operates/required to operate.
DeleteAnd additionally, I'm curious the cost of these. I cannot imagine it's as "cheap" as an NMR and likely requires more electricity, no?
Ash, after reading the comments in Derek's blog, a Gustavo Santiso-Quinones (who claims to be a coauthor on the ACIE article) states that you need to have some sort of crystallinity. Not sure if the Stoltz paper is EXACTLY the same, but if true, I was right in saying that it seems you cannot use this technique for oils.
DeleteI wonder how molecules containing metals would visualize? Say, hemoglobin?
ReplyDeleteIt should be the same as with x-ray diffraction, which is to say better then carbons. However, you sometimes loose a bit of resolution on the lighter atoms due to the metal dominating the diffraction data.
DeleteIt would be nice to mention the accepted article in ACIE that was published a couple of days ago describing the same technology: https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201811318
ReplyDeleteAsh, I liked how you closed the post by linking to your earlier post on scientific convergence(which I had enjoyed reading) and couldn't agree with you enough on it. Everything old gets re-looked at now and then when such inventions come along.
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