Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR)

This is the recently installed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrument in the university.
The actual instrument is the round thing in the middle, the rectangular machine next to it is its processor.
The black part on top-middle of the instrument is where you insert the NMR tube for sample analysis. (and that's why the orange step is placed there)

I won't go into the details of how NMR works, I'll leave that to Wikipedia.
Just to let you know the NMR spectroscopy is an important tool for organic chemists to determine a compound's structure.
For organic compound structure determination, a IR spectra, MS spectra and NMR spectra will be needed.

Tools that organic chemists use to determine molecular structures:
Mass Spectrometry - molecular size and formula
Infrared Spectroscopy - functional group present
Ultraviolet Spectroscopy - conjugated pi electro system present
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy - map of carbon-hydrogen framework


Further reading:

1. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
2. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectroscopy

The First Successful Creation of Synthetic Life

With 15 years of work, Craig Venter and his team has successfully created the first self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell. The bacterial cell, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 contains 1.08 million base pair and it is full functioning. This is truly a historical human achievement and a giant breakthrough in molecular biology.

Figure 1: Dividing M. mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 under electron microscope. (Source)

Figure 2: Creating bacteria from prokaryotic genomes engineering in yeast. (Source)

Figure 3: The assembly of a synthetic M. mycoides genome in yeast. (Source)



Further Information

1. http://www.jcvi.org/cms/research/projects/first-self-replicating-synthetic-bacterial-cell/overview/
2. Full text pdf of the research article "Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome": 
   http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/science.1190719v1.pdf

Need A New Organ?

Just grow one!  This is not a science fiction.
No transplant rejection. No lifelong taking immunosuppressant drugs. No cutting open the poor living donor's body.



I wonder if they can grow some brains for those who haven't got one.

不可小看一隻小鳥的力量!

一隻小鳥跟牠的麵包可以幹什麼呢？ 弄壞 造價接近百億美元 世界上最大的 粒子加速器 LHC﹗ 話說在十一月三日，一隻小鳥不小心跌了牠的法式麵包碎， 而這小小的麵包碎巧合地跌落LHC的外置電力供應系統， 導致短路，觸發了保險裝置而關閉了LHC的部分降溫裝置。 發言人說︰「小鳥安然無恙的飛走了，可是牠失去了牠的麵包。」 我覺得CERN應該要賠償小鳥的損失 (說笑)。 而小鳥和麵包碎怎樣走了進去也令人費解， 這個不是multi-billion dollars的機器嗎？