Situps, Pushups and Groans

Work rarely if ever rears its ugly head in my blog. But today...I was searching a bit at random for images and I came to this lovely. x-ray crystallography gives the information for this type of image-a representation of the stuctures that make up a protein: alpha helices, beta sheets, random coils....all folding upon one another in just the right way to work together or wait on the signal that will make it work. This is the light harvesting protein from Rhodopseudomonas Acidophilla bacteria. Rhodopseudomonas are phototrophic which means they can convert sunlight into energy. My understanding is that work is being done to test these babies for their "bioremediation" abilities. Meaning these things have a way of converting nasty stuff into not so nasty stuff in the environment. From what I've read the interest here is in removal of compounds making up lignin because woody waste is one of those areas where biodigestion is not as easy as it has been with other types of waste. These lovelies are not anywhere in my arena of work but I love this image. It reminds me of a christmas wreath, which usually isn't a good thing, but this...I like.