Looks like you need to change your username to Vyse of Anniston.

I don't think talking about excrement will help your argument.

My work focuses on solar cell materials in the nano-regime; there are others in our lab that work on Li-ion battery research of both anode and cathode materials. I use both TEM and SEM regularly. I have also worked with one of the authors of the paper -- he was a post-doc in our lab before working at Sandia.

The post you cite has some errors and overstatements, although it is generally sound.

This is wholly incorrect. The TEM grid itself is on the millimeter scale, and the structures we examine range from less than 100 nm to 200 nm or greater.

Yes and no. I performed an experiment today where the sample preparation only took around 8 hours (this is due to the reaction, not due to the difficulty of preparing a TEM sample itself). If the preparation of samples for TEM and the utilization of the method were so difficult, the technique would not be used in as many studies as it is.

And just because you can think of an example of another technology that isn't ideal, doesn't mean that TEM isn't.

The experiments we perform involve analysis using TEM almost every day. It's not as lacking as you make it out to be; sample preparation often involves scraping a sample onto a grid, putting the grid in a holder, inserting the holder into the TEM and waiting for the insertion chamber to pump down.

One of the merits of this paper is the in-situ observation; that is Xiaohua's specialty, and that's why he's working at Sandia now. You're also right that these observations can provide insight. However, just being able to see this happen in real-time doesn't impart all of the information necessary to understand a phenomenon. I performed an in-situ observation of a diffusion process using TEM today; it's a piece of data that will add to our argument, but alone it isn't definitive.

My point is that TEM isn't as limited or immature as you suggest, real-time in-situ observation using TEM is helpful but is not as powerful as you imply, and you trivialize important and difficult science ("presumably complicated battery physics").

Do you even know how a TEM works? It is most definitely not an immature technology -- it's been around for ~80 years. Science isn't as simple as throwing something under a microscope and suddenly knowing exactly how it works. If it were, we'd already know everything and people such as yourself wouldn't make such asinine comments.

This will probably be modded off topic or the like, but I wanted to just add a random fact. One of the authors of this paper was a post-doc in the same lab as me before he started working at Sandia; we were working on a solar cell material project together.

The paper regarding lithium intercalation is located here.

My God! I just had a realization -- Liu Xiaobo is Sarah Palin!

First they came for the caps lock key, and I didn't speak because I don't use the caps lock key.

I don't think that using a bomb to stop a terrorist at a crowded TSA security checkpoint is a very good idea either.

Those naked markets are pretty awesome.

To me, this is not indication that life can form on other planets with chemical makeups vastly different from that of our planet. This is an organism that formed with phosphorus and could survive with As replacing P. Also, in the experiments, there was not a complete exchange of P and As. These findings cannot be construed to mean that life forms spontaneously without P present -- the argument can be made that P is still necessary for the formation of life.

The solution was stirred.

I don't know what you mean by "getting them together", but a stir plate was used.

There was probably no electricity involved in this process; they used standard filter paper and then a 0.5 micron filter. The first process was most likely gravity filtration and the second probably involved a syringe.

The reaction is carried out at 25 degrees Celsius; no, there is no excess heat.

I'm only in my 20s, so most of those years don't count. I was just surprised that you found an area where most people aren't crazy staunch "Republicans".

I lived in the South for 20+ years, and I am not surprised by the amount of people that think she should run.