NMR

Last week my boss told me about something pretty surprising, even for the Japanese. In structural biology, there are two dominant methods for determining the structures of proteins: X-ray crystallography and NMR. NMR uses large, expensive instruments which most universities and research institutes will have only three or four of. The higher field instruments ("magnets") are able to provide more data, but also cost a lot more. A typical setup would be a few smaller field magnets like 500 and 600 mhzs and one super expensive high field instrument like an 800 or 900 mhz. Anyway, it turns out that theres a structural biology instutute in Yokohama where they've made a FARM of NMR magnets:

The central buildings each hold 5 mid field magnets, and the outer pods each house one of these bizarre looking high field magnets:

which means 10 mid field and 10 high field= a lot of money! Then there's the other building

which holds another 24 magnets. The budget (spread out over 7 institutes) is ~ 778 millions dollars.