User:Andy Maloney/Notebook/Lab Notebook of Andy Maloney/2010/10/19/Water isotope study

45% Heavy oxygen PEM
Continuing forward with the study.

Well, this is a first for me. I have had a failed polymerization. I have no clue as to how this may have happened.

I just polymerized some more microtubules and made a new 45% O-PEM motility solution. We shall see if this attempt worked or not.

And nope. There are no microtubules. Nothing is polymerizing.

Problem solving
It is quite possible that my TSB went bad and is no longer supporting the polymerization of the microtubules. I'll try this first with a new batch of tubulin and TSB.

So this is extremely irritating however, I'm no longer confident in the TSB stock solution I have. So, I'm going to order new GTP and glycerol. Along with new tubulin.

Needless to say, I'm a bit confused about what is going on. This is the first time this has happened and rather than try and figure out what may have gone wrong, I'm just going order new chemicals and start fresh. It could be that the shelf life of the chemicals just expired. I don't know. Steve Koch 21:15, 19 October 2010 (EDT): Is it possibly a problem with the freezer? God I hope not. Should we hook up a thermocouple that constantly records the -80C temperature?

Teaching Nadia
Instead of running experiments due to the problems above, I've opted to continue teaching Nadia stuff.