MALDI of a Copper Age Mummy

MALDI TOF mass spectrometry has been used to identify the clothing of Ötzi the Iceman (in RCM; hat tip to MW).

Mass Spectrometer Confirms Mars Water

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander thermal and evolved-gas analyzer ( TEGA) has identified water in a mars soil sample.

QTOF Lecture

Raising the bar on scientific presentation production values.

Video Archive: The Mass Spectrometer

A 1988 video from the University of Hertfordshire Science Centre.

A Conversation with Fred W. McLafferty

The Oral History Project of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University has a 90 minute streaming video interview of mass spectrometry pioneer Fred McLafferty (Apple Quicktime required).

Wikipedia Statistics

Here is a site that produces a graph of hit counts for Wikipedia articles. For example mass spectrometry had 43319 hits in February, about one to two thousand hits per day (via).

Rays of Positive Electricity and Their Application to Chemical Analyses

Google Books has a digitized and searchable versions of J. J. Thomson's Rays of Positive Electricity and Their Application to Chemical Analyses both the 1913 Edition as well as the 1921 Edition. There are also downloadable PDFs of the books.

Chromatography Video

Here is another video in need of a mashup.

Computational MS Demo

From the University of California at San Diego.


Update: direct link to above page.

Ion Mobility Separation Animation

A well-crafted animation of ion trapping and mobility separation. It lacks a soundtrack, but it's easy enough to add one.

Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry and the Tour de France

Italian Christian Moreni tested positive for synthetic testosterone with the isotope ratio mass spectrometry procedure.

Cyclotrons, Synchrotrons, Mass Spectrometers, and Cloud Chambers

A physics lecture by Prof. Walter Lewin of MIT.



Launch in external player

Blogroll Cleaning

TIme for a blogroll cleaning. The old blogroll is in the comments.

MALDI Sample Preparation: The Ultra Thin Layer Method

A video tutorial article in the Journal of Visualized Experiments on MALDI sample preparation from Brian Chait's Mass Spectrometry Group at Rockefeller University. JoVE is an online biological sciences video journal.

Really Old Peanuts

Preceramic Adoption of Peanut, Squash, and Cotton in Northern Peru - agriculture, archaeology, and accelerator mass spectrometry.

Protein Synthesis Interpretive Dance

At Stanford University in 1971. Compare to Harvard in 2006.

Mass Spectrometry Videos

• Professor John B. Fenn
• : Agilent 7500ce ICP-MS
• Agilent HPLC-Chip/MS
• Agilent Multimode Source
• Thermo Heated Electropray Ionization Source
• Thermo LXQ Linear Ion Trap
• Thermo TSQ Triple Quadrupole
• Thermo vMALDI Ion Source

(via)

NIH Videocasts on Proteomics

Videocasts of mass spectrometry talks (RSS):

Targeted MS Assays for Biomarkers: Enabling a Biomarker Pipeline, Leigh Anderson, Large Scale Proteomics Corporation

Emerging Role of Mass Spectrometry in Structure Elucidation of Cellular Complexes, Michal Sharon, Cambridge University

Top Down Mass Spectrometry: 2005, N. Kelleher, University of Illinois

Finding Function with Mass Spectrometry in Cancer and Infectious Disease, R. Angeletti, Albert Einstein School of Medicine

New Mass Spectral Strategies for Proteomics and Glycomics , Catherine E. Costello, Boston University

SIMS Video

Pradeep Haldar shows off the University of Albany College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's SIMS instrument.

LOL Mass Spectrometry

A mashup of Lolcat and MS journal newsfeeds (via; via)

Wikipedia Hegemony

This Reason Magazine article only mentions mass spectrometry tangentially, but illustrates one of the points I tried to make in this poster: Wikipedia can't be ignored if it's the first Google hit in your topic area.

Dinosaurs, Chickens and Mass Spectrometry (Video)

YouTube - Dino Protein is for the Birds

Boris A. Mamyrin: 1919-2007

Boris A. Mamyrin, inventor of the mass reflectron, died March 5, 2007, at the age of 87 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mass Spectrometry at FACSS 2007

Abstracts are due April 30 for FACSS 2007. There will be seven half-day oral sessions on mass spectrometry:

• Fundamentals of Electrospray Ionization
• Fundamentals of Laser Desorption Ionization
• Direct Ionization Methods for High Throughput Mass Spectrometry
• Advances in Biomolecular Imaging Mass Spectrometry
• Particle Mass Spectrometry: Techniques and Applications
• Novel Methods for Biological Mass Spectrometry
• Applications of Biological Mass Spectrometry

T-rex Protein Shows Link to Birds

Analyses of Soft Tissue from Tyrannosaurus rex Suggest the Presence of Protein and
Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry
(via).

MS Flash Simulation

Mass spectrometer Flash simulation at eduMedia.

Mass Spectrometry Wikiality

Along with Wikipedia's mass spectrometry entry, which has risen to become the number one Google hit for mass spectrometry, there are a few other noteworthy Wikimedia projects: mass spectrometry photos and diagrams in Wikimedia Commons, mass spectrometry defined in Wictionary, and mass spectrometry section in a Wikibooks selection on proteomics.

Spectroscopy and Separations Podcasts

Joining the growing number of chemical analysis podcasts: SpectroscopyNow and SeparationsNow podcasts.

Yahoo Pipes Mass Spectrometry

Yahoo Pipes is a service that allows the manipulation of web content to create a remixed version of the information. Here is a mashup of mass spectrometry journal articles. Mass spectrometry journals are fed straight in and journals with mixed content (e.g. Analytical Chemisry) are filtered to pull out the mass spectrometry articles.

Proteomics Clinical Applications

Wiley has launched a new proteomics journal, Proteomics - Clinical Applications aimed at "application of proteomics to the study of human disease and translation to the clinic." A quick browse of the first issue suggest that at least half of the articles will be in some way related to mass spectrometry. Fortunately there is RSS Feed to make it easier to stay up to date.

Moving a Large Instrument

The KATRIN MAC-E Filter travels through Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (via).

Analytical Chemistry Podcast

Analytical Chemistry joins the growing number of journals with a podcast (an audio introduction).

Spectroscopy Journal Impact Factors

2005 Impact Factor

1 - Mass Spectroscopy Rev. (13.27)
2 - Prog. NMR Spectroscopy (6.46)
3 - J. Anal. Atom. Spectrom. (3.64)
4 - J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectr. (3.63)
5 - J. Mass Spectrometry (3.57)
6 - Rapid Comm. Mass Spectr. (3.09)
7 - NMR in Biomedicine (2.47)
8 - J. Magnetic Resonance (2.42)
9 - Appl. Spectroso. Rev. (2.36)
10 - Spectrochim. Acta B (2.33)

Mass spectrometry is first and hits four of the top six spots (via).

LCMS Finds Cocaine on Euros

This Analyst article on LCMS for the determination of drug contamination on Irish euro banknotes by Jonathan Bones, Mirek Macka and Brett Paull at the Dublin City University National Center for Sensor Research has been getting quite a bit of press. Trace cocaine was found on all 45 bank notes tested. This is perhaps not surprising, given the ease with which the powder is spread by ATMs and counting machines. Nonetheless, the authors report a significant sensitivity improvement in the LCMS method compared to previous GCMS studies.

C60, the Celestial Sphere that Fell to Earth

Here is a video (RealVideo) of a 1995 lecture by Harry Kroto on the discovery of C₆₀. The famous mass spectrum is at the 12 minute mark (via>via).

Mass Spectrometry IDs Fake Fur

It isn't clear what test was performed, but this story about fake fur has been the biggest mass spectrometry item of the past week. One possibility is MALDI MS of keratin, as described in Identification and Quantification of Feathers, Down, and Hair of Avian and Mammalian Origin Using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry by Klaus Hollemeyer, Wolfgang Altmeyer, and Elmar Heinzle, Anal. Chem.; 2002; 74 5960 (ht to Steve Down)

Stardust Mass Spectrometry

Organics Captured from Comet 81P/Wild 2 by the Stardust Spacecraft in the December 15 Science.

Mass Spec Meets YouTube

Clickable CID Spectrum

The Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry Facility at the University of New South Wales has a peptide collision induced dissociation simulator in which you use a mouse click to break peptide backbone bonds. There is also a sequencing tutorial with study questions.

Proteomics Podcast

The Wiley journal Proteomics has started a podcast. Unfortunately, it isn't formatted for subscription and each audio file must be downloaded individually.

Update: There is now a URL for the podcast that can be used with iTunes or similar software: http://www.wiley-vch.de/vch/journals/2120/podcast/podcast.xml.

MS Biomarker Research to Top $745M

Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, is predicting that mass spectrometry in research related to biomarker discovery will exceed $745 Million by the year 2010. The full report can be obtained online for about $3000.

Nier's Mass Spectrograph

Several photos of the 1940 Nier Mass Spectrograph are online at the National Museum of American History. Alfred Nier built this instrument to separate ²³⁵U from ²³⁸U and test the prediction that the former undergoes fission (via).

Element 118 Discovered

A noble gas with 118 protons has been discovered (via).

Todd Wins Aston Medal

Prof. John F J Todd of the University of Kent was awarded the Aston Medal by the British Mass Spectrometry Society.

Who Needs Powerpoint

An excellent Google Video critique of "Determination of Methylmercury, Ethylmercury, and Inorganic Mercury in Mouse Tissues, Following Administration of Thimerosal, by Species-Specific Isotope Dilution GC-Inductively Coupled Plasma-MS ," Qvarnstrom, Lambertsson, Havarinasab, Hultman, & Frech,
Anal. Chem. 2003; 75 4120 using pen, paper and video camera.

C&E News MS Cover Story

Chemical & Engineering News has a cover story on the International Mass Spectrometry Conference last month in Prague.

Wiley Journal Newsfeeds

Wiley InterScience journals now have RSS newsfeeds (marked-up example):

Journal of Mass Spectrometry: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/rss/journal/6043

Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/rss/journal/4849

Mass Spectrometry Reviews: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/rss/journal/49879

Carboxylic Acid Derivatives and Mass Spectrometry

UC Berkeley Professor Peter Vollhardt talks about Carboxylic Acid Derivatives and Mass Spectroscopy in, not one, but two lectures in his Webcast Lecture for Chem 3B - Chemical Structure and Reactivity in Spring 2006 (Real Media).

Peacock GCMS Viewer

Peacock 0.1.7 for Mac OS X is a view and edit program for GCMS files.

The Inner Life of the Cell

A video produced by XVivo for Harvard University's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. (on StudioDaily and via).