Who Is the Patron Saint of Scanning Electron Microscopes?
Just kidding.
Our department is being considered for a grant that would give us a whole bunch of shiny new toys including — brace yourselves — a desktop scanning electron microscope. Our own little SEM! I would be as happy as a little girl if we had one of those right in the building. We have access to one by arrangement with another, larger, school in the area. It's a schlep across town, though, and I understand that getting time on the thing can be a serious pain in the coccyx. I haven't had the need for it yet myself, but the time will come. When it does, it would be nice to simply walk into a room and do what needs to be done without having to sign up well in advance and hope that the timing works out.
Being a smaller school, I don't know what our chances are of getting the grant. I don't even know which grant it is. All I know is that we've been good little researchers and we deserve a present! We don't have room for a departmental pony, so the SEM would really be the next best thing...
