Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Tim Gruene
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi James, I once heard that in (European) law French is the language of choice because it were the most precise one (which I find easy to believe). Maybe we should try and convince journals to only accept articles written in French - not sure, this

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Sebastiano Pasqualato
Oui bon d'accord, mais il faudra tout de même décider si utiliser vitrifiés ou bien congelés... sorry couldn't resist ;-) s On Nov 16, 2012, at 10:54 AM, Tim Gruene wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi James, I once heard that in (European) law French is the

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread vellieux
What about introducing the use of Franglais in the crystallographic literature ? Ce serait cool ! Fred. On 16/11/12 11:24, Sebastiano Pasqualato wrote: Oui bon d'accord, mais il faudra tout de même décider si utiliser vitrifiés ou bien congelés... sorry couldn't resist ;-) s On Nov 16,

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Gerard Bricogne
Dear all, I think we are perhaps being a little bit insular, or blinkered, in this discussion. The breakthrough we are talking about, and don't know how to call, first occurred not in crystallography but in electron microscopy, in the hands of Jacques Dubochet at EMBL Heidelberg in the early

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Boaz Shaanan
Hi Javier, You're on the exact odd nature of crystals of macromolecules, i.e. the solvent content. Small molecule crystallographers have been FREEZING crystals in LiqN2 for data collection long before the method was introduced to macromolecular crystallography. This works perfectly well,

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Sebastiano Pasqualato
Dear all, I surely was not hoping in such a huge response to my original question. I think we all have read excellent contributions, and pleasant posts. Although, as often happens, a unique consensus has not emerged, I have for sure a clearer idea of what I should use in the future, and have

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Bosch, Juergen
HI Tim, you should know better. German is the most precise language, hence all those old German *gosh* books (for the younger readers of this board, there was a time before pdf and Nook readers) for organic chemistry etc. from the 19th century and older (Beilstein, Angewandte ...). And why was

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Eric Williams
How about Latin? It already has a long and distinguished history of use in science. :) Eric On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 4:54 AM, Tim Gruene t...@shelx.uni-ac.gwdg.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi James, I once heard that in (European) law French is the language of

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Enrico Stura
As a referee I also dislike the word freezing but only if improperly used: The crystals were frozen in LN2 is not acceptable because it is the outside liquor that is rapidly cooled to cryogenic temperatures. But the use of freezing used as the opposite of melting is fine and does not

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Ganesh Natrajan
Hi, Maybe we could just state the obvious, ie, that the crystals were 'Cryo-preserved' in liquid N2. Cheers Ganesh Le 16/11/12 16:27, Enrico Stura a écrit : As a referee I also dislike the word freezing but only if improperly used: The crystals were frozen in LN2 is not acceptable

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Douglas Theobald
On Nov 16, 2012, at 10:27 AM, Enrico Stura est...@cea.fr wrote: As a referee I also dislike the word freezing but only if improperly used: The crystals were frozen in LN2 is not acceptable because it is the outside liquor that is rapidly cooled to cryogenic temperatures. right, while the

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Bernhard Rupp (Hofkristallrat a.D.)
Agreed. When we do not know what is actually happening upon cooling in a multi-component system like the crystal, avoiding well -defined terms referring to the state of matter, and instead restricting ourselves to a term describing the process appears less contentious. Thus, flash-cooling,

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Quyen Hoang
I enjoyed following this thread. Because English is not my first language, I was hoping to learn the official definitions of these terms. In my opinion, all the variations proposed so far are fine - I don't see problems with using them. For me, when I see flash frozen in liquid nitrogen or

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Kendall Nettles
I completely agree with Quyen. One of the many definitions of freeze is to make extremely cold. It is grammatically correct to say freezing your crystals, especially since, as you point out, everyone reading it knows exactly what you did, and which definition of freeze you were referring too.

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Ronald E Stenkamp
I'm a little confused. Petsko and others were doing low-temperature/freezing/vitrification crystal experiments in the 1970s, right? (J. Mol. Biol., 96(3) 381, 1975). Is there a big difference between what they were doing and what's done now. Ron On Fri, 16 Nov 2012, Gerard Bricogne wrote:

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Quyen Hoang
I was going to mention that too, but since I was a postdoc of Petsko my words could have been viewed as biased. Quyen On Nov 16, 2012, at 1:26 PM, Ronald E Stenkamp stenk...@u.washington.edu wrote: I'm a little confused. Petsko and others were doing

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Gerard Bricogne
Dear Quyen and Ron, Thank you for bringing up this work. I can remember hearing Greg Petsko give a seminar at the LMB in Cambridge around 1974, but I never read that paper. The seminar was about cooling crystals at 4C, and also about work done with Pierre Douzou to try and retain the high

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Craig Bingman
On Nov 16, 2012, at 12:26 PM, Ronald E Stenkamp wrote: I'm a little confused. Petsko and others were doing low-temperature/freezing/vitrification crystal experiments in the 1970s, right? (J. Mol. Biol., 96(3) 381, 1975). Is there a big difference between what they were doing and what's

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Ed Pozharski
On 11/16/2012 12:54 PM, Kendall Nettles wrote: I wouldn't go into the lab and say did you cryo-cool those crystals yet? or check out this nice crystal. Its ready for vitrification. If we speak the way scientific articles are written... By Bernard Dixon, published in New Scientist, 11

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread R. M. Garavito
Actually, to echo Ron, many low-temperature/freezing/vitrification crystal experiments were done in the 1970's, some by Tsernoglou and Petsko, when they were both at Wayne State, I believe. However, the direction Jacques Dubochet was looking at was an extension of work from the early 1960's.

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread James Stroud
On Nov 16, 2012, at 12:01 PM, Ed Pozharski wrote: On 11/16/2012 12:54 PM, Kendall Nettles wrote: I wouldn't go into the lab and say did you cryo-cool those crystals yet? or check out this nice crystal. Its ready for vitrification. If we speak the way scientific articles are written...

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Ronald E Stenkamp
In the 1975 paper, they describe taking crystals to -100C, but it wasn't done in a flash sort of way. They equilibrated the crystals with various solvent combinations as the temperature was reduced. Trying to recollect what was discussed by my lab mates nearly 40 years ago, I think the fact

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Quyen Hoang
Hi Ed, If we speak the way scientific articles are written... By Bernard Dixon, published in New Scientist, 11 April 1968, p.73, an imaginary conversation at breakfast: Daddy, I want cornflakes this morning. Must I have porridge? Yes. It has been suggested by mummy that, in view of

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Bryan Lepore
warning - tangential: Steven Pinker's talk/promo on his new-new book The Sense of Style : Scientific Communication for the 21st Century : * * http://video.mit.edu/watch/communicating-science-and-technology-in-the-21st-century-steven-pinker-12644/ -Bryan

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Adrian Goldman
Bernard Dixon is merely copying the great essay by George Orwell 'politics and the english language'. Its well worth a read. In it, Orwell lays out about six simple rules for writing good english prose. Three of them are: never use the passive voice. Always use the anglosaxon word instead

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread David Schuller
On 11/16/12 17:33, Adrian Goldman wrote: Bernard Dixon is merely copying the great essay by George Orwell 'politics and the english language'. Its well worth a read. In it, Orwell lays out about six simple rules for writing good english prose. Three of them are: never use the passive voice.

Re: [ccp4bb] vitrification vs freezing

2012-11-16 Thread Jrh
Dear Andrew, Re cryocooled. Cooled? It reminds me of James Bond where Martinis should be shaken but not stirred. Ie Cooling sounds awfully gentle, a sort of enjoying a cool sea breeze in the Caribbean heat. (Ian Fleming wrote his Bond novels there.) Shock frozen is more what we are doing to