Kick Your Ass with Science

Hey homies, I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, and I have no excuse.  Just postdoctoral life taking its toll.   Plus, hang gliding season is here, and I've been excited about that.  But I stop by this humble blog to present you with two offerings.  First, via Nature Methods, single molecule structures:

A new generation of X-ray sources known as X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) is being developed, and the first source, at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the United States, is expected to be up and running as early as mid-2009. Researchers believe that these brilliant lasers, which come with up to a billion-dollar price tag, will facilitate single-molecule structure determination. "We think that these X-ray lasers are going to transform structure determination in the way that lasers transformed spectroscopy about 40 to 50 years ago," says Abbas Ourmazd, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

I'm still waiting for my table-top water-window x-ray source so I can do single gold nanocrystal tracking with x-rays.

Second, via Pharyngula, Kick Your Ass With Science: