From owner-drosophila@net.bio.net Thu Mar 21 22:00:00 1996 Path: biosci!rutgers!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!aardvark.life.uiuc.edu!user From: a-schmi@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (aloisia schmid) Newsgroups: bionet.drosophila Subject: Will I explode the lab? Date: 22 Mar 1996 01:09:44 GMT Organization: University of Illinois/Howard Hughes Med.Inst. Lines: 37 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: aardvark.life.uiuc.edu Dear Fky-people, A few days ago I asked if there was an easier way of sharpening tungsten needles, which I use to hand de-chorionate embryos. I had been using an electric current with a sodium nitrite solution; this set-up is in another building and involves something of a hassle to have to go use. Four people responded and all four told me that I could melt sodium nitrite over a bunsen burner and that would work well. They also warned me to wear goggles as the hot sodium nitrite spritzes. So I went over to our chemical store-room and bought the necessary chemistry stuff (which was really fun!) and did it and it worked wonderfully well! Ecept that when the PI whose apparatus I normally borrow saw all of this, he said, "Are you MAD? You could have blown us all to kingdom come! That stuff 'll kill ya'!" Unfortunately, I didn't save the four kind responses, so I thought i would ask about this, especially since my boss just saw the bunsen burner and the goggles and the crucible with molten sodium nitrite in it and asked another post-doc in the lab what this was all for, and since the inevtiable "she almost blew us up" came into the conversation, I thought it might not be a bad move to ask this more pressing q uestion, "Am I really risking the lab and its assorted personel by sharpening my tungsten needles this way?" I guess the real question is, will I cease and desist even if it turns out to be true? It was awfully fun! Alice Schmid -- Aloisia Schmid Howard Huges Medical Institute/Morrill Hall University of Illinois 505 S. Goodwin Ave, 618 Morrill Hall Urbana, IL 61801 Email: A-schmi@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu .