> MtBSTFA derivatives are 104 times more stable to hydrolysis than their corresponding TMS derivatives and produce easily interpreted mass spectra for GC/MS.
https://www.registech.com/derivatizing-reagents/silylation-r...
EDIT: Derek Lowe: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/alkanes-mars
[Seems JPL are more courageous^W patient^W adaptive than MMAANG!]
Follows (p3) the actually interesting phrase: what'd they mean by that? What provoked the peer reviewers?
"It is INTERNALLY ACCEPTED by the SAM team that a signal can be assessed from a S/N of 2 and the quantification is tentatively made from any detected m/z"
On reflection on the list I gave of DARPA-likes..
[Where might our intuitions diverge?]
Couple clues for it not being simply nostalgia:
1. The right question is closer to : why do breakthroughs announced by/awarded to MAANG these past decades not pass the optimal curiosity-agency smell test? Too teleological? Cheap conspiratorial answer is that they focused on investigations too expensive for academics to disprove/replicate. Less cheap answer is SV unwittingly replicated the structural issues of pre-lost-decade Japan (shareholder-supremacy? Overoptimistic metrics?)
2. Which brings me to: cultural premiums being nolonger affordable by gradstudents/good faith middle managers across the board
(Is it related to "supervision debt"? Or "moderation-technik debt")
*Related to the information bottleneck worked upon by my undersung hero Bialek?