A New Record: 120 EEMs in One Day!

I am pretty sure we set a new record for the number of excitation-emission matrices run in one day.  (Side note: excitation emission matrices, or EEMs, are a tool we use measure the fluorescent fingerprint of water, which provides information on water quality).  Today, Brooke H. of the Bernhardt lab at Duke collected 120 EEMs from of different urban stream samples, starting ~ 9am and finishing around 5pm.  This extraordinary rate of EEM analysis was made possible by my new Fluorolog from Horiba that uses CCD detection (think digital camera), to collect a multispectral EEM in 20 SECONDS!! Compare this to the 18-30 minute EEMs collected conventionally on most other fluorometers, which adds up to ~7-8 DAYS to analyze 120 EEMs.
So, what will we do with all this free time? Probably not go to Disney Land, but instead we'll take advantage of this fast EEM capability to evaluate (1) time-sensitive samples (2) to address some questions about PARAFAC models that are only now practical with the capability to generate large datasets in a short amount of time (3) develop the EEM/PARAFAC approach to assess changes in water quality in "real time", among other pursuits.