Contractile Injection Systems - Hot Springs - cryoET: Read the final version of our paper here: academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #microsky #teamtomo

Awww. When guests come and bring goodies from our friendly neighbours upstairs. I miss the kindness of Canada. And I absolutely adore how excited they seem to be at the fact that Benito included them in the show.

Half joking. I'm. Toys r Us kid. I don't want to grow up. That, and the fact that the boss and sub-bosses always encourage curiosity and learning to troubleshoot like FSEs.

When you manage to fix an issue for a FSE in a couple of mins, without needing to restart a single thing. And the FSE says: that's very impressive. And I say, when I grow up I want to be like you 😁.

Happy Women in science day. On this day I am thinking of all my women science mentors and Rita Levi-Montalcini who did experiments in her bedroom in defiance of Mussolini’s ban on Jews in academic and professional careers while WWII raged around her.

About the only thing I feel like celebrating right now (well, along with doing a semi flawless cryo insertion)

Many congrats to our fearless leader @davidamuller.bsky.social www.nae.edu/19579/31222/...

I still got it. Doing a cryo insertion for the first time this year and it went beautifully. 22yrs and it's still there *chef's kiss.*

Use RCSB PDB's Pairwise Structure Alignment tool to compare existing PDB structures or Computed Structure Models (or upload a local file) #LoveDataWeek www.rcsb.org/alignment

For those unaware about the significance of the light poles during the song El Apagón it’s because of the Puerto Rican power system and the constant black outs. There have been a lot of protests on the island over this.

It's not even midnight and we're already at "Deport Elmo."

Just a few weeks ago, the administration cancelled all remaining department of energy grid resilience projects in Puerto Rico. All of them. www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-end...

I identify more with Gen X and I agree with this message

Like any good puertorrican, I've spent Bad Bunny eve cleaning the house, mopping floors, and threatening my family with hell if they step on said freshly mopped floor 😬

Lastly, this one is for all of my fellow microscopists. Of all realms/modalities. A friend of mine wrote this a decade ago. She's a magnificent microscopist and I love her to pieces.

When one of your students asks that you keep an eye out for something and, so that you don't forget, send pics of when and where you found the something. Then they see you down the hallway and say thanks for finding the thing 😊

Honoring immigrants in research www.science.org/content/arti...

On a lighter note, since Our Lady of Perpetual Stigmation was permanently relocated to Duffield Hall, we have a new Mary in the basement. For protection of the scopes, detectors and operators 😝

On happier or perhaps sillier notes, the Boss and my office mate (and a few coworkers) have survived my baking!! If funds for microscopy ever go poof, I may open a bakery 😝😝👩🏻‍🍳🍪🍞

And you know, the coolest part is that she didn't lie. She said the reason the scope was naked was because things would be coming off and on a lot (they did). That it would set records (it did). That it was hella high res (yup). And that wonderful things would be discovered (yes, again).

When I started working at the center, I remember being both surprised and a bit in disbelief about some of the things being proposed. Not because I didn't think the bosses in charge couldn't do them, but because I knew they'd be difficult, cutting edge, and would challenge our understanding

WEBINAR: Dr. Danielle Grotjahn, Scripps Research discusses how #cryoET shapes our understanding of cellular architecture, and analyzing data to extract quantitative insights: 10 Feb, 5 PM CET | 11 Feb, 5 AM CET Register here: ter.li/zfiv48 #CellBiology #StructuralBiology #ElectronMicroscopy

Also random: sometimes I question my worth as a scientist. Not because people are mean or nasty. But because I'm not always doing mega cutting edge stuff. I train people, assist them when things go kaput, and discuss and propose solutions.

When you realize that the vision she had over a decade ago is finally being adopted by fellow scientists.

Bhattacharya testified that he's taking this issue seriously, but I just spoke with a researcher who had completed all the screening and was disinvited from NIAID's council *today*. NIAID's council is set to run out of voting members in October. No grants can be funded without Council.

Given the weather today, it’s time to repost my favorite phase diagram: Nakaya’s snow crystal morphology. We are towards the bottom right today. 🧪 ⚛️ #cryoEM

We are running the cryo-ET image processing workshop again this year! Come learn everything tomo: STA, segmentation, heterogeneity analysis from @baradlab.com @williamnwan.bsky.social and others! Apply!

When we start posting pictures of the auroras, and @davidamuller.bsky.social helpfully calls it Plasma Cleaner Time 😝😝. Seriously, I never thought physics would/could be so enjoyable until I met the fine people I work with.

@davidamuller.bsky.social I spot the EMPAD right up there.

When you're absent-minded AF, and happen to put a GIANT sticker on a holder that the admin folks are looking for. Then one of your bosses joins you, you suspect you find the right thing, then all the admins praise you and the boss for saving the day. It's my first day back at work.

On the 11th day of Christmas my true love gave to me: 11 pipers piping, 10 lords-a-leaping, 9 ladies dancing, 8 maids-a-milking, 7 swans-a-swimming, 6 geese-a-laying, 5 GOLD RINGS, 4 calling birds, 3 French hens, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. 38 people watched me devour 23 birds.

This is so precious!!

And on my own, I found out Earl, Ben Siegel, AND Yoshi Fujiyoshi wrote a few papers together!!! I remember my PhD mentor mentioning Fujiyoshi quite a bit when I was a wee grad student.

Today, bosses @davidamuller.bsky.social and Katja Nowak, along with my lovely colleagues got together for lunch, hilarious stories, a very Cornellian bit of trivia (which the bosses won! they got beautiful glass ornaments made by our very talented glass blower, Sean.

Holy ribosomes, Batman!

Congratulations, Julia Mahamid! Julia Mahamid receives the @dfg.de Leibniz Prize for her work on structural cell biology! #LeibnizPreis

Dairy-free cookies. Now with properly creamed sugar. Not quite vegan, but certainly yummy. Because after troubleshooting for entirely too much this week, I needed a creative outlet.

Even my old MBP from 2016 worked! Truly magic. And as always, by my psycho, when you can do ptycho 😬

Our new zippy ptychography code, PtyRAD is now out in print. 3D Multislice reconstructions that used to take a day, now can be done in about an hour! 🧪⚛️ #ptycho paper and install links: academic.oup.com/mam/article/...

This

Our microscope lab was in the same buliding as the anechoic chamber - in one of the old varechoic rooms. The acoustics folks showed us how to get things quiet.

Imaging hydrogen atoms with ptychography

*finally* had time to osmo-regulate (TMI). Been running around since I got to work. Yesterday, a pump failed and it upset the scope chillers. Today there was another blip. It's so fun when you sit in front of a microscope clearing errors, returning things to vacuum, and redoing filter tuning(s) 🙄

and @joachim123.bsky.social was very briefly a postdoc (one of 3 labs he worked in during his fellowship in the US)

That would be Ben Siegel. He joined Cornell in 1948, after having worked on the Manhattan project looking at diffusion membranes with TEM. James Hillier (then at RCA) donated an RCA TEM to Cornell, and found funding for student fellowships. Ken Downing did his PhD with Ben, as did Earl Kirkland

To continue with the great tradition of physics folks and EM at Cornell ... I found out yesterday that Don Caspar did his bachelor's here at Cornell! I should compile an oral history of electron microscopy and Cornell. Boss David shared not too long ago that RCA donated a TEM way back when

Postdoc opportunity with Michel Goedert and myself to work on #cryoEM/#cryoET structures of #amyloids. Feel free to email me with any questions you might have. mrc.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/...

The face of a tool manager who is deSatanizing certain energy filter because we had another blip in process-chilled water. And the mask analysis failed. Ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Many moons ago I remember telling Lena that I was only good for cryo (as in, cryo was pretty much all I did). I remember she said that it was exactly what was needed, because she didn't have enough hands or time to do all the work that was needed (care for holders, show people how to use them, etc)