http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/05/10/new-camera-makes-x-ray-movies/ Yesterday's tomorrow, today. Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:10:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/05/10/new-camera-makes-x-ray-movies/#comment-1023980 NikFromNYC Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:09:44 +0000 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/05/10/new-camera-makes-x-ray-movies/#comment-1023980 I used to be a chemistry PhD student. And the top (at least biggest group and biggest ego...who had angels painted on a sky-filled ceiling in his master bedroom), predicted, off-hand, via the statement "well, we don't have x-ray movies yet." What he MEANT was x-ray *crystallography* movies that showed how molecules move if your watch included a nano (actually femto) second dial. And the new millennium we have not one but two of those technologies now available. One is the ability to take a "crystal structure" (AKA Crick and Watson DNA=Helix Nobel Prize) using *one* molecule in some sort of vacuum chamber, but also some other thing I forget. The big breakthrough though is that it was TOO HARD to "crystallize" the most important medical pill worthy proteins, since they were, in a cell, imbedded in the soap-bubble-like cell membrane, but they wouldn't crystallize. I used to be a chemistry PhD student. And the top (at least biggest group and biggest ego…who had angels painted on a sky-filled ceiling in his master bedroom), predicted, off-hand, via the statement “well, we don’t have x-ray movies yet.” What he MEANT was x-ray *crystallography* movies that showed how molecules move if your watch included a nano (actually femto) second dial. And the new millennium we have not one but two of those technologies now available. One is the ability to take a “crystal structure” (AKA Crick and Watson DNA=Helix Nobel Prize) using *one* molecule in some sort of vacuum chamber, but also some other thing I forget. The big breakthrough though is that it was TOO HARD to “crystallize” the most important medical pill worthy proteins, since they were, in a cell, imbedded in the soap-bubble-like cell membrane, but they wouldn’t crystallize.

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