Extreme Sagging

Happy New Year folks

Foliage and Plumage

 Nature never ceases to give amazing pictures.

A close look of a leaf from an unknown plant at Arboretum SF . Below is a close look at the feathers of a bald eagle of SF Zoo (the national bird of USA). Staring longer upon these pictures there are some striking similarities. Although they are evolutionarily very distinct structures nature has enforced a main stem and branches (veins in case of leaves and barbs for feathers). If you think a little further the main stem/stream and branches are very predominant, even outside nature such as main stream fields and branches. Perhaps having a main stem/stream and branches is a fundamental phenomenon in the physical world that its nearly impossible for any system to not have it. More to follow up in forthcoming posts, for now just enjoy the pictures.

96 well-thought reasons (well almost*)!

If you are doing biological research chances are very high that you must have at least once used a microtiter plate 96-well high throughput (HTP) also commonly know as 96-well. For some the HTP or even a hyper HTP (384-well) is bread and butter. The American National Standards Institute has even defined the dimensions for 96-well format. But have you ever wondered why is it is a 96-well not any other number. Well if you have some thoughts it will be great to hear as well. But here is what we in the lab came up with, ‘we’ here are myself, John, Marvin, Enfu etc., thanks to lively discussion and contributions.

A quick Google search will give you the history of microtiter plate and here is a quick primer.  The very first microtiter plate can be traced back to the Hungarian scientist Dr. Gyola Takátsy around 1950s^(1-3). Dr. Takátsy used this innovative technique for influenza virus detection during an epidemic. He published the idea, which was picked up by the Linbro Company and made 96-well microplate. More refinement of microtiter plate, automation and wide applications came along afterwards. A list of further reading can be found at the end if you would like to know more about the evolution of microtiter plate^1-6.

So after reading all about the history/evolution it is still not clear how Dr. Takátsy came to a conclusion that 12x8=96-well is the best format. It seems that Dr. Takátsy very first microtiter plate was a 6x12=72-well, he also has tried 10x10=100-well. To quote from an article⁴

“For time-saving, Dr. Takátsy soon replaced the wire loops by thin iron or steel knitting needles that could be flame-sterilized. He arranged the needles in a way that he could keep them in his hands without problems. This led to a plate with 8 x 12 wells that could be quickly and easily filled the 96-well plate was born”.

The 96-well format has began its humble being from early 1950’s, this rules out the ‘chicken-egg problem’ of which is earlier the 8x12 tip boxes or 8x12 plate. Thus the 96-well format has clearly dictated the market to make 96 tip boxes, multi-channel pipette, PCR blocks etc.,

Coming back to the original question of why 96? Conventionally a 10x10=100-well seems to be an ideal plate, 100 a round composite number. Where in the first instance 96 might look like a random number, but it the highest number below 100 to have maximum positive divisors (96 is divisible by: 1, 96 and 2,3,4,6,8,12,16,24,32,48). This means one can make easy partitions, serial dilutions, duplications and combinations. There smaller options too but they are basically divisors or 96 (for eg., 24-well crystallization plate/tissue culture plate).  Nextal has made a new format of 6x3=18-well crystallization plate, but again not a square plate (see below).

A perfect 10x10=100-well will give you a square block and it is quite easy to mix-up with a four equiv-dimension block. Although to some extent this argument holds true for a rectangular 8x12 block too, but there is only one possible way doing wrong with a rectangular block. Plus a 2:3 ratio as originally Dr. Takátsy said is easy to hold/handle by hand.

We can argue more good things about the 8x12=96-well format, but to some extent it sounds like there is ‘no choice of other option so we like it’. It is nearly impossible to even think about another format (the 384 and more are mere multiplications of 96). According to Dr Peter Banks⁵ the 2009 global market for microplates is ~$500million. If you add up the entire tip box formats and other instrument formats the sum will go considerably higher. So for the moment sit tight and do your HTP assay in 96-well format (or more) thinking how good the 96-well format is. But don’t forget to thank Dr. Takátsy for inventing a tool that makes our life easy.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtiter_plate.

2. http://www.plastiquarian.com/index.php?id=13&subid=179

3. http://www.oek.hu/oek.web?nid=499&pid=1

4. http://www.biotek.com/resources/docs/Necessity_is_the_mother_of_invention_GIT-  Verlag.pdf

5. http://www.ddw-online.com/enabling-technologies/p92824-the-microplate-market-pastpresent-and-futurespring-09.html

6. http://www.labmanager.com/?articles.view/articleNo/3551/article/Evolution-of-Microplate-Technology

* I couldn’t come up with 96 reasons, it’s like using only few wells in a 96-well plate!

The casual visitor and a resident bug

Jewel beetle (Ponvandu in Tamil) is one of the colorful insect and probably the most pleasant insect to observe. These insect sightings are becoming rare these days, but here is a casual visitor who showed up in our previous garden in Ranipet, India.

The below one was pictured in our new home garden, unlike the above casual visitor this one is a permanent resident hanging out in maize bloom.

Bharat Sakriyakaran Yojna – C for CAG

2G, Kanimozhi, CWG, Kalamadi, CAG, Manmohan-ji, Sonia-ji, BJP see how rhyming is everything, where did this ‘Coal-gate’ name came from sounds like my toothpaste. Most of you might have heard and fed up with the C-words (CAG, Coal-gate and corruption), we really are a rhyming nation! It all seems wrong and everyone is coal-slinging each other, but what if this all part of grandeur government plan to create awareness among the common man.

The secret BSY* program (Bharat Sakriyakaran Yojna), let me explain; the political system of India is so complicated, our constitution the most voluminous and to further complicate our judicial system is corrective. Meaning that the courts can interpret (re) define the constitution text according to the situation. This leaves us, the people of India to read volumes of books to get a faintest idea. Instead the politicians of our age have decided to teach us the ABC of constitution and politics of India, by creating example situations.

This time it is C for CAG (Comptroller and Auditior General, an autonomous constitution body which audits the GoI checks and balances). Let me remind you that the incumbent government tried to teach about the CAG 2 years ago using 2G spectrum as an example. But the media hijacked it to complicate things and the public finally forgot the three-letter word CAG (which first exposed the 2G auctions just like Coal-gate). Fortunately our politicians are such a hard working fellows that in the background they have always a scandal in brew.

Unlike the 2G model, this time great care is being taken to keep CAG in the news. This is very clear from the statements given by many prominent ministers, they try to explain what CAG can do, should say and very importantly what not to say. Last but not least, PM yesterday took in charge of this BSY program. Although his intentions were to explain CAG, the economist could not control his basic instincts on teaching CAG how to compute and audit.

Wandering off from CAG, PM in his BSY class also touched the Center and State relationship in constitution. Mentioning that the ‘opposition ruled states opposed the competitive bidding… and …seeking a broader consultation and consensus with states was the right one’ it is clear that the previous BSY program on explaining the center-relationship using the president’s rules (Article 356 & 357) will not be taught this session. Just a brief reminder, Congress a pioneer in Center-state relationship (in particular opposition ruled states) has used the President’s rule close to 100 times in almost all the states.

Even if the public does not remember the Do’s and Don’ts of CAG, they would at least know the abbreviation of CAG. All the credit goes to our wise politicians who strive to put complicated constitutional acts in action in to their daily lives, thereby creating awareness. So instead of spending money directly on education programs and wasting money, this government has taught us new way of teaching constitutional terms. A win-win-win situation for politicians-corporates and –people. Long live BSY!

*Any relation of BSY acronym with other minor mining scandal in a southern state is purely fictional.

Fall Vs Winter

 

Here are two example shots of fall Vs winter. The picture was taken in 2008 Dortmund, Germany. It does rarely snow in Dortmund and I always enjoyed the season transitions (although I hate cold winters). Not a perfect alignment of picture, but I am proud that I took this with Nokia N95 phone camera.

In the spirit of Olympic games

Although the clip colors are not as Olympic rings, the arrangement is close enough.