A Little Grace
I write a lot about negative things. I think negatively far too often. Tonight, for a change, I’ll write about something nice. I apologize if there’s no continuity.
First, research: Things are looking up on my latest project. EPR stands for electron paramagnetic resonance. Going back to high school chemistry, you may recall that an atom with an unpaired electron is called paramagnetic. Paramagnetic species are, therefore, rather short-lived; they desire to combine with another species in order to fulfill the octet rule. In order to see paramagnetic species, the reaction must be stopped very quickly (before molecular oxygen quenches the compound of interest, and before the compound of interest combines with itself). This necessitates a machine that shoots reactants together at a very high speed (milliseconds) and a medium that decreases molecular motion to a near-stand still (like liquid nitrogen, for instance). Since liquid nitrogen is a rather violent medium, liquid propane is used instead.
In the Lewis lab, we’re interested in Dirigent Protein (DP). DP is like an enzyme-sort of. It specifically captures two coniferyl alcohol (CA) radicals. Radical is another word for a paramagnetic species. At any rate, DP doesn’t turn CA into CA radical like an enzyme would. Rather, it finds CA radical after something else has made it. What we’d like to know is how many CA radicals are captured per DP and at what rate they dimerize (to dimerize is to take two of something and combine them, such as when two radicals form a chemical bond and stop being radicals).
EPR is a technique that enables us to do this. When you stick a sample of liquid propane-quenched CA (plus something that oxidizes it to CA radical) into an EPR machine, a signal will appear; it looks like a sine or cosine wave. Since CA radical is constantly combining with itself or molecular oxygen, the longer before the sample is shot into the liquid propane, the smaller the signal. We can determine the rate at which CA disappears by measuring the change in signal intensity over change in time.
The good news is: Such a graph has finally availed itself! Why, you might ask, is it so hard to get a good graph? That’s the thing about science; on paper, everything looks great. But the laboratory is far from perfect. If the sample is not evenly packed, if the machine is working improperly, or if the liquid propane isn’t exactly the same temperature, data points will be different and the statistics will be weaker. Not only does this require me to be extra-careful in terms of how I use my hands; it means that even if I do everything perfectly, other unknown variables may screw me up anyway. I am pleased to say that, at this early stage of the investigation, this is currently not a problem! Thank God!
I have something else to be happy about: There’s a beautiful girl who works in the lab across the hall. I have nothing to talk to her about, and if I did I’d hardly have the nerve to try. But, for the past year, she’s been nice to look at. She’s been nice to have short, meaningless conversations with. My experience is richer for having had this opportunity. Come September, I will probably never see her again. So for the time I’ve had, thank you.
Oh, and one more thing: I never knew what a cool person George Harrison was! Sure, John and Paul, no problem, they're amazing. How did I overlook the spiritual one? He just died, actually, in November of 2001, a victory for heaven but a loss for earth.
First, research: Things are looking up on my latest project. EPR stands for electron paramagnetic resonance. Going back to high school chemistry, you may recall that an atom with an unpaired electron is called paramagnetic. Paramagnetic species are, therefore, rather short-lived; they desire to combine with another species in order to fulfill the octet rule. In order to see paramagnetic species, the reaction must be stopped very quickly (before molecular oxygen quenches the compound of interest, and before the compound of interest combines with itself). This necessitates a machine that shoots reactants together at a very high speed (milliseconds) and a medium that decreases molecular motion to a near-stand still (like liquid nitrogen, for instance). Since liquid nitrogen is a rather violent medium, liquid propane is used instead.
In the Lewis lab, we’re interested in Dirigent Protein (DP). DP is like an enzyme-sort of. It specifically captures two coniferyl alcohol (CA) radicals. Radical is another word for a paramagnetic species. At any rate, DP doesn’t turn CA into CA radical like an enzyme would. Rather, it finds CA radical after something else has made it. What we’d like to know is how many CA radicals are captured per DP and at what rate they dimerize (to dimerize is to take two of something and combine them, such as when two radicals form a chemical bond and stop being radicals).
EPR is a technique that enables us to do this. When you stick a sample of liquid propane-quenched CA (plus something that oxidizes it to CA radical) into an EPR machine, a signal will appear; it looks like a sine or cosine wave. Since CA radical is constantly combining with itself or molecular oxygen, the longer before the sample is shot into the liquid propane, the smaller the signal. We can determine the rate at which CA disappears by measuring the change in signal intensity over change in time.
The good news is: Such a graph has finally availed itself! Why, you might ask, is it so hard to get a good graph? That’s the thing about science; on paper, everything looks great. But the laboratory is far from perfect. If the sample is not evenly packed, if the machine is working improperly, or if the liquid propane isn’t exactly the same temperature, data points will be different and the statistics will be weaker. Not only does this require me to be extra-careful in terms of how I use my hands; it means that even if I do everything perfectly, other unknown variables may screw me up anyway. I am pleased to say that, at this early stage of the investigation, this is currently not a problem! Thank God!
I have something else to be happy about: There’s a beautiful girl who works in the lab across the hall. I have nothing to talk to her about, and if I did I’d hardly have the nerve to try. But, for the past year, she’s been nice to look at. She’s been nice to have short, meaningless conversations with. My experience is richer for having had this opportunity. Come September, I will probably never see her again. So for the time I’ve had, thank you.
Oh, and one more thing: I never knew what a cool person George Harrison was! Sure, John and Paul, no problem, they're amazing. How did I overlook the spiritual one? He just died, actually, in November of 2001, a victory for heaven but a loss for earth.