His zippers and jam jars

A very productive day finishing off Discussion for Matthias & Yvonne's manuscript and submitting manuscript on Will's MSc results to FEMS Microbial Ecology. This is the first time I have encountered a compulsory requirement of submitting a graphical abstract with the submission.

In the afternoon I met with Robin and Magdalena from Alga's group to hear their story on Dld1, a small secreted protein from Piriformaspora that binds iron. Some wonderful imaging of Piri infecting the roots of barley by Magdalena and some nice data from Robin showing this protein binds iron - micro scale thermophoresis was a new technique for me. Amazing the data you can generate from 4 micro litres of sample. Jam jars sure are good for growing barley in axenic culture. Hearing about silencing of gfp and the native gene, presumably by quelling, was a bit of deja vu (aka recent observation by Kimberly). Much to my surprise I discovered Robin plays rugby - maybe with time this wonderful game will become truly international

Frauenberg Ruins - Marburg

Frauenberg Ruins - Marburg

After work Christine and I biked around to the ruins at Frauenberg. What a magnificent 360 degree view of the surrounds of Marburg - we counted at least 20 small villages.