I finally have some more news about the experiments I spoke about here. The instrument used to analyze them broke down completely - not my fault, they tell me, but perhaps they're being kind - and came back on line just in the last couple of days. Yesterday we took the samples out of the freezer, where they'd been living for two long weeks, and ran them late Monday afternoon.

And the data make no sense to me at all. For example, some of the vials that were designed to shut down the effect I'm seeing actually made far and away more product than anything else. That's so odd that it doesn't even make sense as a negative result, which would have had those vials acting the same as the others. I can't come up with any reason why they'd be the best in the lot, that's for sure. There's also a lot of scatter between some of the duplicate runs, which leads me to hope think that this wasn't a failed experiment as much as a bungled one. Whether I hosed it up while working on it that Saturday, or whether it didn't take well to sitting in the freezer, I don't know.

Of course, it could be that these ugly figures are the real results, which would fit with Nature's well-earned reputation for heartlessness. There's only one way to find out - I'm setting everything up again today, with a few more variations to address any of the other variables I can think of. My first data still look so clean that I'd hate to think that this latest junk is the real face of things. But we'll know soon. I'll keep everyone informed.