late post

Sue and Lloyd were here on Sunday night and took us out to dinner! So the blog is getting updated a little late.

Oscar is very well-behaved at restaurants. He dutifully chews on the crayons and drinks from straws and eats the unfamiliar food. It's quite pleasant! He is also no longer able to click his tongue in an inhumanly loud way, since he has giant front teeth that get in the way.

Eric is negotiating with reps all the time. The lab is going to buy a robot to do RNA extractions from plant tissue for them, for many thousands of dollars. And then they will have a lab robot! We had one in the Biology department a few years ago as a demo, and it was very cute and very efficient. The yields were exactly the same, every single time. And while it was running, you could go do something else!

I am finding more and more evidence that extensins are an integral part of wood, which is essential to my theory that extensins are a problem in making biofuels out of wood. I don't know why I couldn't find all these articles before when I was applying for grants - a paper was recently published that had a bunch of good citations that have opened the world of wood-protein studies to me. One paper is by an art conservator who studies pyrography, which is the art of making pictures by burning wood. A lot of the discoloration is achieved by caramelization of the sugars and also by my personal favorite, the Maillard reaction, which requires nitrogen, which is donated by the proteins found in the wood! It all comes together so nicely...
a) a pyrograph

b) the painting it's copying

a - ‘The Dead Christ Mourned’, by Smith c. 1829. Photograph by Susan M Millis; b - The original painting, NG2923 The Dead Christ Mourned (‘The Three Maries’) by Annibale Carracci c. 1604. Presented by Rosalind Countess of Carlisle, 1913. Photograph ©The National Gallery, London. 

Anyway, here's some pictures of Oscar at his latest and finest.

Investigating his Valentine's Day package from Great-Gramma

Playing with some dinosaur magnets

And finally, the shawl for my cousin is finished! It's very warm and cozy, and I'm excited to make another one just like it for myself!

Here it is drying after I blocked it. When I make things for other people, I do it right, but I usually can't be bothered to block things.

Ta-da!