Anaerobic conditions and holidays

The last couple of weeks we have faced some problems in the lab, but we have overcome them, and are now ready for the EPR experiment next week. This time we purified our protein anaerobically, which means that we have performed all the work in an anaerobic chamber (it looks more or less like the one in the photo from the manufacturer Belle Technology). This makes the work a bit more cumbersome, since you have to remove the oxygen from all the solutions and the equipment you are using for the purification, and do all the work inside the chamber using thick gloves. I'm sure Margarida agrees with me, since she did most of the work in the chamber which is located in one of the cold rooms :-)

Tomorrow (October 5th) it is a holiday in Portugal. It is the Republic day, "Implantação da República", which celebrates the end of the monarchy and the beginning of the Portuguese republic in 1910. Due to the financial crisis in the country it has been decided to cancel this holiday from next year on, so it is the last time the Portuguese will have this holiday. So, I should perhaps say, happy last Republic holiday! Not so sure the people will really enjoy it since it looks like most of them will face a 4% increase in tax from next year on…..