Dear Abbe,
I need to get high-resolution images of our samples on a field emission SEM. Our problem is the EM Lab we use is primarily materials-based, but our samples are of Turtle Herpes virus and Rabbit Pox. They say they can’t help us. Why are they being so obstinate?
Blocked at Berkeley
Dear Blocked,
Freund, quit your whining! You’re lucky the EM techs talked to you at all! Your particular samples sound like they were derived from a disease scenario of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s particularly sad since my friend, Charles Dodgson (you may know him as Lewis Carroll), was a good mathematician and logician who would be upset to see what you’ve done to his characters! In physical science circles your samples would be referred to as “squishies” that could potentially contaminate their high-end analytical microscope. But honestly, this is just an excuse. Your Kollegen are really just insecure. They always look at nice, simple things like a crystal or a nanoparticle. When they see your viri, they don’t want to be reminded of how simple their subjects are. So they melodramatically cry “contamination!” like the boy that cried wolf. It is best if you don’t get your knickers in a bunch and instead go find others of your kind that enjoy a good tea party with other Mad Hatters.
Dear Abbe,
We have a very strange microscopy problem. Based on your expertise I hope that you have some suggestions for the cause of the problem. Currently we are trying to do wide-field imaging of endogenous fluorophores (NADH, FAD). For this, we use a 365/50 nm excitation filter and a 480/30 nm emission bandpass. When we try to do multi-position imaging (automated stage controlled by an old Optiscan controller), we observe a strange sinewave-like modulation in the signal (but only with the mentioned UV excitation filter set) that has an amplitude of approximately 10–15% of the initial signal. Cycle time for the sinusoidal artifact is approximately 10–15 min. This artifact only appears when the stage is actually in use (single-position imaging yields a stable signal). The whole setup is driven by the most recent controller software release, which is (except for the observed perturbation) working just fine. Do you have any idea on how to tackle the problem? Anxious in Essen
Dear Anxious,
Your scope is broken.
Instrumentation woes and broken relationships are just a few of the topics within Herr Abbe’s experiential spectrum. Send whatever vexes you have to his assistant at JPShields@uga.edu.
