Hi Sebastiano, Elspeth Garman howls bloody murder everytime someone says they "froze" their crystals. I think her issue is with the description of the process of successfully flashcooling crystals in the presence of cryoprotectants as "freezing." Freezing technically is understood to imply the formation of hexagonal ice while what one really means is the successful solidification of water in a random orientation (vitrification) and the prevention of the hexagonal ice.
Semantics semantics! I'd stick with flashcooled or something along those lines. Raji On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Sebastiano Pasqualato < [email protected]> wrote: > > Hi folks, > I have recently received a comment on a paper, in which referee #1 > (excellent referee, btw!) commented like this: > > "crystals were vitrified rather than frozen." > > These were crystals grew in ca. 2.5 M sodium malonate, directly dip in > liquid nitrogen prior to data collection at 100 K. > We stated in the methods section that crystals were "frozen in liquid > nitrogen", as I always did. > > After a little googling it looks like I've always been wrong, and what we > are always doing is doing is actually vitrifying the crystals. > Should I always use this statement, from now on, or are > there english/physics subtleties that I'm not grasping? > > Thanks a lot, > ciao, > s > > > -- > Sebastiano Pasqualato, PhD > Crystallography Unit > Department of Experimental Oncology > European Institute of Oncology > IFOM-IEO Campus > via Adamello, 16 > 20139 - Milano > Italy > > tel +39 02 9437 5167 > fax +39 02 9437 5990 > > please note the change in email address! > [email protected] > > > > > > > > -- Raji Edayathumangalam Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School Research Associate, Brigham and Women's Hospital Visiting Research Scholar, Brandeis University
