The Devil Reincarnate

That's exactly what I thought about the kids who are in our intensive session after the first class. I knew Brainhighways kids where not your normal adorable angels, and although these nine are adorable they are no angels. I have spent the last five days being kicked, bitten, slobbered on and almost puked on. Needless to say it's been eventful.

And although I know tomorrow will probably be as grim as the other days, there are nice moments and I'm defiantly learning a lot. The difference with the intensive session is that most of the families are from out of town. Unlike our regular families who dedicate themselves to an 8 week session the intensive families often don't have that level of seriousness. Several even seem to think that we can magically fix their kids in just one week! But we can't and I think the rest of the staff is getting as annoyed as I am with their attitudes.

On the bright side of things though not all families are like that, and some are just wonderful. My favorite family has three kids who are cute, well behaved and ridiculously polite. Another bright fact: how much more information I'm getting. Normally things are spread out over 8 weeks and the parents get various emails and podcasts. However, there are too many to send and expect people to read/listen to so instead a lot of it gets condensed and we talk more openly in the class about it.

Other than that I'm mostly just working on my paper which is coming together rather nicely.

Until next week......

Despite a decade of inflation, I still dig your supply curve

This sentence is for David and Andy!

So, guess who has been applying her econ. readings to real life! Yes, me. So I never mentioned it, but I started taking an Econ class online at Pima so that I can get a head start on classes that I'll have to take at the UofA for business. It just so happens that what I've been studying in the class fits in perfectly with what I'm doing at Gadabout! It's crazy how everything in life eventually comes together. But I will share my econ insights with you...

One of my earlier Gadabout projects was creating a product knowledge manual that included descriptions and planograms for every product that Gadabout sells. I produced seven manuals: one for each location and one for myself. Yesterday Megan and I went to the Sunrise/Kolb salon and re-arranged ALL of the product shelves so that everything went according to MY planograms!!! It was really exciting to see everything that I'd planned out on paper go up in real life. After we were finished, Megan quizzed me on what I'd learned about strategic product placement and I was able to ramble on and on about why each product line was where, and how it affected the consumer. Oh man you would've been proud. Just as an example, Gadabout has their own line of haircare called G-Line, which is now placed right next to the front counter in a case, that way it is the first thing that customers see when the walk in and they are even forced to walk by it, which will hopefully result in increasing sales of the line.

Mother's Day is right around the corner, which is the next major holiday for the salons (again giftcards are gonna go like crazy), so that is the focus for the rest of the week. I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing, but I know it will have to do with Mother's Day.

Well now you know about the exciting econ-filled week I've had thus far; I'll be sure to fill you in on my next applications of the study.

Oh BASIS BASIS BASIS....
Christina

Wasp Stuff is slowly winding down...

Well, I'm going to remind all of you that the stuff that goes on in the Hunter lab is on a weekly cycle, so if I did something one week, chances are I'll do it the next week, at the same time, even. Now, I'd also like to mention that even though my powers of rhetoric can't convey the pure joy lacing my thoughts in words, I really, really enjoy working at that lab. Eight hours feel like eight minutes!!!

Contrary to the first of the above statements, I did do something a little different this week. So, yesterday, for the first time in my eight weeks at the lab, I did a harvest of Encarsia formosa pupae. Harvests are done by removing cowpea leaves that contain parasitized whitefly larvae from plants in jars, and transferring them to another jar (known as the emergence jar), where the developing wasps will emerge from the husks of their hosts a few days later. Anyway, the cool thing about Encarsia formosa pupae is that while the wasps themselves are black-bodied with yellow abdomens (this describes the females, but since this is a parthenogenetic species, there are no males), the color of their pupae is like a cream and brown marbled pattern. Today, the lab was only down to one volunteer--ME! So I had to do three harvests (Encarsia pergandiella, Eretmocerus eremicus, and Eretmocerus emiratus), as well as an Eretmocerus emiratus infestation (infestation is the process of sucking up wasps into a tube, and placing that tube into a jar with a cowpea plant containing whiteflies on it). This was actually not a whole lot of work, so between the harvests and infestation, I watered some un-jarred cowpea plants that are sustaining a whitefly culture, and I created some primers by taking the concentrated stuff and watering it down. Also, and I didn't participate in this, (I was there, though) but the lab worked on an enormous gradient PCR to test whether or not the machine functioned. The machine functions, but not all of our 96 DNA samples behaved for us, as evidenced by the weird gel electrophoresis results.

Oh yes, I'm getting a day off tomorrow, and most of the day off Thursday. My first full day off ever!!! Maybe I'll use it to write some stuff or read some stuff, or maybe I'll sleep until noon and not assume a standing position until I have to forage for food. We'll see how it goes...

Going the Distance

A funny thought dawned on me as I climbed the stairs to the green house this morning. I began to wonder exactly how many stair steps I would have climbed by the end of this project. I know this is not exactly of intense importance, but time while climbing the stairs is not readily used up by anything other than concentrating on putting one foot higher than the other, so I began to count. It is 6 flights of stairs from the bottom of 6th st garage to the restricted access greenhouse area, and about 3 flights to the north entrance of the Chandler lab at Bio5. Because it is about 10 steps a flight, I estimate that I climb something around 520 steps a week! I might dedicate a slide in my presentation just to this calculation. Now that I have laid everyone's concerns about my aerobic health to rest, it's time to talk about the field.

If it is even possible the work is more arduous than that which I committed myself to in the summer of 2009. Thursday began with taking measurements of the field and dividing it into plots in which separate families would be grown. From 2 till sundown my small cohort walked the length of the land by the Veterinary Research Labs out on I-10. On Friday we really began to get our hands dirty. By the end of the day we have made it through about 6 plots. Apparently there's something like 30, because Mario estimates we will be finished planting by the middle of next week. My immediate concern is meteorologic because there is a 40% chance of rain this coming Thursday, and if it is anything like what we have been getting the seeds stand a fair chance of being washed away. Wish me luck!

The Attractin Gene

This week, I am continuing to sequence various regions of the attractin gene. I am focusing on completing the stages necessary to sequence intron 4 in all desired specimen. Many of the DNA for the specimen, however, is not where it is supposed to be placed or is entirely used do the number of PCR reactions occurring simultaneously in the laboratory. Therefore, I am also performing numerous dilutions to obtain the desired concentration (20ng/µL) of DNA before continuing with the PCR reactions. This week also has added excitement as I received additional sequences from the sequencing center that I can now clean, analyze, and enter into my data tables. I am eager to complete preparing the samples for intron 4 and to receive all of the sequences, so that I can finally determine the relation between association in intron four of the attractin gene and variation in coat color in the Kenzin and Carrizozo, NM populations of rock pocket mice.

Wind ON!

So the time has finally come, after almost three months of preparation the wind tunnel tests are finally ready to begin this week. I don't know if I have given a substantial description of the wind tunnel test so I'll do that now.

So the UH-60L (or UH-60 Lima if you want to sound like an engineer here), the US Army owns well over 1000 of these. One of the most widely used helicopters in terms of flight time. So naturally NASA would choose the UH-60 as a validation for various computational simulations. Let me backtrack, computer simulations of helicopters are really bad at the present. Usually they can only apply to hovering helicopters (not flying forward) or helicopters that don't have a fuelslage. So they aren't very useful for real world development, or rather they aren't as useful as they are for fixed wing aircraft. Its not that the simulations can't model rotorcraft, its that the uncertainity becomes so large its not really worth it for smaller projects. This is why developing rotorcraft is so time consuming and expensive. But, I digress.

So the wind tunnel test, this rotor system is instrumented with almost every sensor NASA owns. Presure tabs, strain gauges, balances, laser systems, etc. The purpose of all of this is to create a database of measurments that future rotorcraft development software can be compared against. So where do I fit into this picture? I got another job! I get to moniter all of these channels in real time and make sure that they don't exceed certain values. If they do exceed the values it might mean the test stand might tear apart and fly down the tunnel and tare up the drive system. In case it wasn't clear thats not a good thing. So yeah the wind is going to be turned on this Wednesday, who knows maybe it will be a show.

Found the culprit?

Recently, many of my PCR reactions have not been coming up with DNA when I run gels. I've been hoping that this problem would just correct itself or go away, but this was not to be the case. Three PCR reactions in a row failed to produce DNA fragments.

The good news is that I think I've finally found the problem. I used the Vector NTI program on the lab computer to double-check what the annealing temperature of my reaction should be. I had been previously been using 51C, just taking it for granted that it would always work. Vector NTI told me that I should be setting my annealing temperature higher, at 55C.

The reason that this would be a problem is that if the annealing temperature is not high enough, the double-helix DNA strand in my reaction solution might not separate completely, making it impossible for the Taq molecules to move along the strand and produce more DNA copies. Setting the annealing temperature higher will help the strands to separate. I will know tomorrow whether or not the PCR was successful when I run a gel on the reaction products.

In other news, here is an image of my Oleracea plants. The front-right one is the Dwarf 5 phenotype, which has a shrunken stem. Front-left is Dwarf 6, which is instead dwarfed in the shoot near the flower, causing the flowers to have a bunched-up "bouquet" look. I'm not sure which is which, but one of the back plants is Dwarf 1, which may be a hybrid dwarf. The other is the "wild type," or un-mutated genotype.

Opening show!

Whew! What a day! Today was the first showing of Wild Things and I would say it went very well. The audience seemed to have fun (I know I did) and there were very few disasters. For me the highlight of the show was getting to be the puppeteer, something we didn't rehearse until about half an hour before house opened but that everyone thought was hysterical. I admit that for a while I was concerned about the show because it was moving at so much slower of a pace than the one at Borderlands, but I am pleased to say that I would call the show a success, albeit success in a different way than at Borderlands.

Well, on another note, I am still trying to figure out my paper (and presentation) and am still reading Fundamentals of Play Directing. The topic of my paper has become a comparison of the experiences I have had with the two companies to two directing books I have/will read. Then I will attempt to combine the most "successful" elements of each source to create a kind of directing style that would seem best to me.

Oh, and if you didn't already know, I was accepted to Lewis & Clark!

I guess that's all! Tschus (that means goodbye in German)!

Mainly shrimp

For this week, I've mainly been focusing on the shrimp. So far this week, I've been regularly feeding the shrimp, feeding the fish, and watering the hortensis. We have already found out that the Vsep water is unsuitable for the shrimp and will be using it for just the Talapia and for some irrigation experiments on some newly planted lentiformis and Attriplex hortensis within the greenhouse (and possibly some bio-assay on some bigger shrimp.)

We've also noticed that a lot of the shrimp in the RO concentrate tanks have been dying. So we ran a bio-assay using RO water and 3 ppt artificial sea salt water with the shrimp. The first time we found that 3-4 had died out of the 10 put in. -However, about 3 of them were stuck on the side of the beakers indicating that they were startled somehow and jumped; so we suspected someone had come in and disturbed them and they got scared and jumped. So we re-did the bio-assay experiment, and found that within 24 hours, none have died. And within 48 hours, 1 had died.

I also went down to Marana this week. There, I helped collect moisture data on the pre-planted plants there using the neutron probe. After that I helped out by cutting back some of the plants there to make the place look nicer.

As of now, the Attriplex hortensis have grown quite large. We have been measuring the height of them weekly just to get a growth rate for later, and you can already see that the hortensis grown under the RO treatment + aquaculture has grown much larger than the others. The regular RO treatment and fresh water are almost the same, (but the RO water treatment are growing slightly more.)

So far it's been good. Next week we will probably set up the Talapia in RO and Vsep water for a bio-analysis and possible growth experiment.

No more tigers and rabbits...

It's somewhat funny how I/Dr. Manne keep getting distracted. Although I have created several Mathematica "programs" (I can't decide whether or not Mathematica counts as legitimate programming) that simulate various situations related to tigers chasing rabbits, after some discussion we've decided to mostly forget about the Homicidal Chauffeur Problem. The reasons for this are as follows: 1) after some investigation, we have realized that this problem and its variations have been so well researched that it is really pointless to continue any further 2) optical trapping is cooler 3) the respective optimal (as far as we could tell) strategies for the prey and predator just are not that interesting.

Nonetheless, I will explain a little bit about this problem and about these strategies.

Problem:
There is tiger. It wants to catch and eat the rabbit. The rabbit is some distance away from the tiger and enjoys life.

When the tiger begins chasing the rabbit, what is its best pursuit strategy if it wants to catch the rabbit as quickly as possible? Similarly, what should the rabbit do to maximize its time alive?

Let's look at the predator's strategies first...
To make this easy let's pretend that the rabbit is stupid and just runs in a circle centered about the origin and that the tiger begins at the center of this circle. Also, the tiger can make infinitely sharp turns (i.e. acceleration is infinite).

Stupid Strategy:
If the tiger is faster than the rabbit, it can eventually catch the rabbit by simply going towards where the rabbit currently is (i.e. the velocity vector for the tiger always points directly at the rabbit). This is the "stupid strategy". It works, but it is inefficient. Here is a picture (red is the rabbit's path, blue is the tiger's path):


Constant Bearing Strategy:
A much better strategy for the tiger is to go towards where it predicts the rabbit will be later on. What this means is that the tiger pretends at every instant in time that the rabbit will continue going in a straight line from its current position at its current velocity.

The tiger then calculates a path (a line) that will intercept the rabbit's line and begins to move along it. This is known as the constant bearing strategy. For a rabbit running in a circle with the tiger starting at the center of the circle, this strategy will allow the tiger to catch the rabbit in about 1/3 of the time than if it used the stupid strategy.

But, in this case, the rabbit is running in a circle and so the tiger doesn't move along a line. Instead, the line becomes a little bit bent. Here is a picture (red is the rabbit's path, blue is the tiger's path):


The Rabbit's Strategy:
If the tiger is faster than the rabbit and can make infinitely sharp turns, then there is no hope for the rabbit. It will be caught and killed.

But if the tiger's acceleration is "significantly smaller" than that of the rabbit (the rabbit can make sharper turns than the tiger), then the rabbit may be able to escape.

Unfortunately, the strategy is what you would expect and is pretty simple (and mostly uninteresting): the rabbit simply makes a bunch of sharp turns. It runs along a line and waits until the tiger gets "close" to it. It then makes the sharpest turn possible back towards the tiger. It then repeats this...

So that's the basics of the problem. Things get difficult with acceleration and multiple predators and or obstacles...

Anyway, so as I mentioned, instead of pursuit problems, I will continue working on optical trapping type stuff in the future.

Also, if you are interested in pursuit problems/math/fairly simple differential equations, GET THIS BOOK! It is very easy to follow (you only need to be comfortable with separable differential equations) and quite entertaining...

I would love to explain more, but this post is already looooong...

The Attractin Gene

For the remainder of this week, I devoted myself to continuing in my efforts to sequence intron 4 in the attractin gene for the selected mice specimen from Kenzin and Carrizozo, NM. Realizing how much PCR the laboratory is conducting, we have now lowered the volume of each PCR reaction, as the supply costs rapidly increase with each individual who joins the laboratory. I further continued to enter the sequence data that I obtained and cleaned on Monday into a table showing the polymorphic sites (regions of nucleotide base variance) in each individual.

In addition to continuing with my own research on the attractin gene and its role in the agouti-Mc1r (two other genes involved in pigmentation) pigmentation system, I also attended a lab meeting in which a post-doctorate working at the laboratory discussed her research concerning the relation of the Y chromosome with reproductive isolation in house mice. Reproductive isolation is when two populations are unable to mate with one another due to many circumstances, such as different mating calls or different mating seasons. This leads to the formation of a new species. The Y chromosome is the sex chromosome associated with male characteristics in mammals. The long-term goal of her research is to determine the genetic cause of male sterility. According to her data at this stage in her research, the Y chromosome is not necessary for sterility; however, she has only studied a small sample size and has not examined all desired phenotypes associated with fertility, such as testis size and sperm count. During her presentation, the many scientists in the room thought of two opposing hypotheses for the reason as to why her data disagreed with data in a referenced published paper. This intellectual disagreement is truly evidence for the need for research and discovery in order to uncover the truth about nature that individuals yearn to comprehend but as of yet lack a true understanding.

I Thought of Tomorrow, and I Wished it was Monday Evening

Tuesday Morning --> The Pogues

So that title only makes sense to me but it is also somewhat related to my project! Tomorrow I will begin the week long intensive session and Brain Highways. This morning I have been skyping and emailing back and forth with different people at BH, but we have a set plan although generally when we see the actual kids our plan has to change to meet their needs, but here's hoping.

Project wise this week hasn't been too busy, but I have been working on other things so it seemed incredibly busy. On the project front I've been gathering still more research! The main problem I've run into is that most of the research quotes known facts that everyone in the field understands but they often do not have specific research to back it up making my task much more difficult. I spent sometime in the USC library the other day and was able to find some articles but I'm probably going to have to keep digging.

On the more general front of things I've been doing, because they seem considerably cooler than doing research all the time, this week has had me all over LA. Most of the week I ran different errands for my Aunt's interior design company and I must say it's rather fun to get to just tour famous people's homes whenever you feel like it, and shopping for people without budgets is also a crazy wild good time. Last night my uncle took me to the Paul F Tompkins show, which I highly recommend to anyone in LA every show is different but it was amazing to say the least. In fact that's where I heard the song whose lyrics I used in the title. He ended the show by bringing out quite the colorful group of people: Ed Helms (Andy from The Office), Sara and Sean Watkins, Weird Al, and a bunch of comedians and singers who I didn't recognize but together singing and everyone playing an instrument made it quite the performance. Ed Helms decided they should call themselves the Fogues, so who knows they could make an encore performance at another PFT show. After the show I met a lot of the people who will be doing Curb so I'm very excited for the next two weeks.

So until then, hasta la vista!

I think I'm in love...

It's true - hard to believe, I know. I met her yesterday, at the lab, and I got to work with her some on spectroscopy. How cool is that? She's a Seya-Namoika monochrometer, and I'm totally ditching my current spectrometer.

Perhaps that's a little bit of hyperbole, but in a way, it's also true. The Seya-Namoika is leagues beyond the spectrometer I've been using so far. With my current one, there's a very limited set of variables that I can play with to get the data I need. On the current spectrometer, I can adjust nothing. The output itself must be modulated by external influence. This can include adjusting the scale on the strip chart, the voltage across the PM tube, maybe the intensity of the light source, and that's about it. With my new monochrometer, I can adjust the scan speed and the slit width. Seriously, it was like a kid in a candy shop - I was very happy. Being able to adjust the scan speed is useful, but not necessarily critical, since the same effect can generally be achieved by increasing the speed of the strip chart. For most things though, it makes your life much easier to be able to increase/decrease the scan rate of the monochrometer.

The most important thing is the ability to adjust the slit width. In the case of this monochrometer, light from a source enters through an adjustable slit, hits a reflective diffraction grating, and exits through another slit. The monochrometer scans from one wavelength to another, and the light (or lack thereof) at that wavelength passes across the exit slit. If you have your slits adjusted wrong, you can end up with your spectral lines muddied together - that's bad. By adjusting the slits, you are able to gain clearer "resolution" of your spectral lines, so distinguishing them is much easier.

It must be said however - and Dr. Bickel would kill me if I didn't point this out - that the other spectrometer is a perfectly good piece of equipment, and it has served me faithfully and well. The reason it's exciting to have the monochrometer is because it gives me a greater range of capabilities. For general questions, the spectrometer is fine. If you want me to answer a question about a specific part of the spectrum, I'll probably take it downstairs to the monochrometer so that I have greater control over the data, and can give an good answer.

"When you drink tea, just drink tea"

So I was reading through these notes that Megan was having me type up, and I came across "When you drink tea, just drink tea," and I was like "Megan, yo, whats this, I don't even like tea.." and she explained that it means when you're in that moment, just be in that moment.
BE IN THE MOMENT!
Genius stuff...I know. But I've been really trying to live by it and so far I guess it's going well.

But anyways, hi I'm Christina. I am doing some typical intern work this week. I have to read this book called "Engaging Service: 22 Ways to Become a Service Superstar" and annotate on all the key points. The guy who wrote it, Bryan Williams, is just all about customer service, and works as an inspirational speaker for businesses. I've heard him once while Megan was in a conference with several other staff members, and the guy even made me feel happy, and I wasn't even part of the meeting. WOW. So I'm getting the goods on how to be a "Service Professional." Who knew that sincere service would keep customers returning....

Aside from that, this week is going by pretty slowly. Megan likes to keep articles and adds that feature products used at Gadabout, and she has a ton of magazines and newspapers in a stack that need to be looked through, so I basically got to sit around and read fashion magazines all afternoon. Life is good today.

So be in the moment, you.
Me

MOV blog, update

So, to update on progress from this week and the last, I've been mulling around on choosing different programming languages for my stethoscope. The issue is that I never actually learned the C programming language, making programming complex code in it somewhat difficult. So, to overcome this, I've decided to create a fully working set of code in a programming language I know, to give me a template from which to work when cobbling together a working piece of C code for the final chip.

This journey between programming languages is teaching me quite a bit, and, at the risk of getting all jargon-y about things, I'm fascinated with the computational efficiency of some forms of code, and the power of some processors I know how to work with.

Today's work, getting code laid down in the known programming language was actually quite successful, I coded well over 450 lines of pure assembly code. Those of you who know, or know of assembly, will ask "why the *expletive* is he using Assembly, rather than some nice high-level code like Java or C!!?" My answer has two parts: 1)because I'm slightly masochistic, and 2)because it's super efficient (each assembly statement requires around 50ns to compute. For comparison, the high-level languages require 1 millisecond to perform a single statement.)

This means my code is running around 20000 times faster when I punish myself by coding in assembly rather than the more familiar high-level language.

Tomorrow's work will be to finish a few (hundred) more lines of code that will actually control the audio interface to bring meaningful information to and from the chip and allow for volume control. Once that is complete, I'll begin the somewhat tedious task of transcribing my assembly code to C code, and maybe have an alpha version of the code to actually get a system running *fingers crossed* for a preliminary test. After that, who knows where I'll take the project. Maybe I'll add a super-pretty interface and bluetooth and wings. Who knows?

'Till then,

Alex Davis

The Future of Paramutation

A very special time of the year is coming up and I can feel the tension growing in the lab. Field season is right around the corner and we are not ready for it. In order to prepare I have been pulling shifts of up to 7 hours working on the simple task of loading envelopes with candidate seeds. I like to believe that with each new task I begin to acquire a skill to match it. With this loading process came the ability to selectively count with both hands at the same time. I may be bragging slightly, but you won't believe the amount of time it saves, and is there anything better than learning how to finish your chores faster?

During one hourly inspection, Mario gave me a fascinating insight: "you know the future of our understanding of Paramutation is in your hands," to which I replied, "Is that really a good idea?"

Anyway, the festivities really kick off tomorrow when I get to start planting in the field!

Sequence

Today, I finished up some stuff leftover from last week. I ran another gel to verify that my latest PCR reaction had produced some DNA. Satisfied with the results, I purified four separate samples of DNA. Two of them are from "Dwarf #5" and two from "Dwarf #6." We will send these samples in for sequencing sometime this week.

In other news, I was thrilled to discover that my plants flowered over the weekend! I will post pictures once I get home, providing that I can both remember and locate my camera cable.

Something Different is Happening with the Wasps!!

So, for the past few weeks, my experiment over at the Hunter lab has consisted of repeating the same kind of experiment with four different test groups, with one test group per week. Basically, things went like this: on Mondays, we made wasps mate; on Tuesdays, we created leaf dishes and thinned out the number of whitefly larvae contained on the dishes; on Wednesdays, we put mated female wasps on those leaf dishes; on Thursdays, we collected those wasps and flipped over half of the whitefly larvae to check for wasp eggs underneath; on Fridays, we isolated wasp pupae for the next week's block of experiments and infested whitefly-covered plant with wasps to keep the culture alive. The whiteflies we worked with were the silverleaf whitefly (Rickettsia-negative), and the wasps were Eretmocerus emiratus (all Rickettsia-negative and either Wolbachia-positive or Wolbachia-negative). After four weeks of this, the leaf dish part of the experiment was over, so now, we're gonna do some different stuff relating to my experiment.

Since that stuff is all over, my days at the lab will involve doing some culturing for any of the wasp species at the lab (if you'll recall, the lab has microscopic parasitoid wasps in either the genus Encarsia or Eretmocerus, and between the genera, there are six species, and multiple populations of each, some from foreign countries), or doing some DNA extractions and PCR-stuff with the wasps from the experiment (we kept and froze all of the wasps we used for the experiment in a -80 degree Celsius freezer). Today, I did a little bit of both. First, I harvested some Cardinium-negative, Wolbachia-positive Encarsia inaron wasps and then did some DNA extractions on various other E. inaron wasps (this wasn't for my experiment, but for practice and for other lab experiments).

So anyway, that was my day. It was finally something different than what we had been doing for the past month (although I did have fun this past month, don't get me wrong). Also, it looks like I may be getting some days off in the near future. Sounds exciting!

The Attractin Gene

This week, I hope to continue to make progress in completely sequencing three introns in the attractin gene. I arrived to the laboratory this morning and was pleased to find new DNA sequences in my folder on the computer that I sent for sequencing last week. All of the samples appear to have been sequenced successfully, and I am eager to finish cleaning the data in search of heterozygotes (individuals with two versions of the same gene). From the data that I have received and cleaned, both intron 4 and 23 show two regions of heterozygosity. I also completed cleaning all of the sequences for intron 17 today (intron 17 was the first region I began sequencing)!

Additionally, I ran through a set of PCR reactions, but must repeat these reactions tomorrow in search of the source of error; possibly, the annealing temperature is not appropriate for the reaction, as it has caused issues with this intron in previous trials. Today proved to me once again how the field of research is truly a field of problem solving, as well as discovery.

When it Rains...

Last week was taken up largely by a very mundane task. I was in charge of uploading sequences of DNA to the human genome website and using a search engine named BLAT to find positions of similarity. By Thursday I realized that it would take weeks to finish this process at my current rate because each folder had a letter of the alphabet assigned to it and in each folder were 26 files to be queried. I decided to use my time in between submissions to research alternate methods for running large scale searches in order to speed up the process. What I eventually uncovered was a computer script that would submit sequences at certain time intervals and therefore be able to work around the clock. I had effectively found a way around three more weeks of computer work! As a reward, My advisor let me spend most of my Friday watering plants in the green house.

I was unaware that this was not the only piece of good news that I would receive today. I went from the lab over to my second home , rocks and ropes. I climbed in high spirits for a few hours and then felt hungry enough to leave. When I had settled down with a pb & b sandwich to think about the past few hours I got a text from Cody asking me whether I had gotten any mail from Macalester yet. My heart began to race as I realized these would be the last few minutes of ignorance. As I looked into the mail box I recognised the Macalester colors. On the corner of the letter I could make out the word "Yes". I quickly tore open the letter just to make sure there wasn't some awful mistake, but there it was, the letter filled with congratulations signed by Lorne Robinson. Even a separated shoulder resulting from a fall at skatecountry didn't put a dampner on my Friday.

Bit of downtime in California

With the first part of the week mainly spent working with equipment, taking other shots(no crew ones), and jogging the amount of things I could do only became more limited when my family took me up to California for spring break. I didn't spend all of my time up there just hanging around with family, I was able to do some work with the laptop and books I brought as well as plan on which scenes can be shot more conveniently while others will have to wait. Not to say that I'm copying scenes off of movies but I am looking through various scenes in other movies to display to people on the set what I would like the filming to look like. It is time to pick up the pace though to make sure that I am more comfortable with the progress as the project continues.

Chugging Along

So this week the Live Theater gang started to go into crunch time! Yesterday they did two full run-throughs and plan on doing two more today with tech and the sign language translator lady in costume. The show goes up next Sunday and though the show isn't quite as goog condition as Pancho Villa a week before performing, it's really starting to look really good. It looks like they're going to make me the little bird thing that tells jokes to the kids before the show starts to keep them entertained, it sounds right up my alley and I'm looking forward to get to do a little interacting with the audience.
On Monday I had my interview with Eva Tessler. It was great except that since she works at Tucson High I had to fight them to let me on campus and then I got lost until I found people that I know. I found out a lot about why she directs and what she likes about Borderlands and I think I'm ready to get cracking on my first few paragraphs of my essay.
This week I also finished The Art of Directing and am moving on to The Fundamentals of Play Directing. Yay. Also, I wrote my essay outline and sent it to Mr. Kittredge on Friday. I am having issues with having too much that I want to put in my paper but hopefully that will work itself out as I start the real writing this week.

Week Four

This week passed fairly uneventfully. Only a few things of note happened at the museum. Last Friday, the museum sent out it's annual membership mailing (this includes a survey and membership renewal form). I volunteered to help. Boy was that a mistake. I was at the museum from ten 'till three folding paper and stuffing, sealing and sorting envelopes nonstop. On the plus side, I picked up six extra hours of internship time.

The most exciting thing that happened this week was an attempted copier scam. Someone supposedly from the museum's copier supplier called and asked for the serial number of the museum's copy machine. For all of you thinking of going into office jobs, never do this! Always verify the company and know why they need the number. If not, you could be scammed for a lot of money. Fortunately, the scam was recognized for what it was. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

As far as my project goes, I called every museum on my list. However, out of the five people I wanted to talk to, four were on vacation and one was sick. I will try again next week.

There is a space in the museum called the idea box  that serves both as a gallery or a craft space. The exhibit currently inhabiting the space will be up until the end of the month, so I spent this week trying to come up with a craft to take its place. Usually, crafts are related to the exhibit at the museum. One of the artists featured in the current exhibit is A. G. Rizzoli. Throughout his life, Rizzoli drew portraits of people as buildings in his imagined utopian society Y.T.T.E. (Yield to Total Elation).Here is an example of his work:


I think his stuff is amazing, so I decided to develop a craft around his artwork. I decided to print out templates of paper houses that people can decorate to resemble themselves or someone else. Ama sent me a list of house templates, and I am currently in the process of trying to find one that is nice-looking by easy to put together. If you have some spare time, I would highly recommend spending a few hours with some scissors and glue making a paper house. It's very relaxing.

On the college front, I have been accepted to both Colorado College and Mount Holyoke. I was also awarded a Mt. Holyoke Leadership Award.

The Attractin Gene

The remainder of my time in the laboratory this week, I have been continuing the steps necessary to sequence intron 17 and intron 4 in the attractin gene. I have dedicated a large amount of time to troubleshooting issues with the PCR reactions, diluting new DNA samples to the desired concentrations and running gradient PCR reactions that vary the temperature at which the primer attaches to the DNA sample to determine the optimal temperature for the PCR reaction. I am eager to conclude my optimizing stage of the PCR reactions and again begin to collect DNA sequences for numerous additional samples. I also concluded this week by sending samples out for sequencing, which I look forward to analyzing and cleaning when I return to the laboratory next week.

I further continued researching the attractin gene this week, focusing on its pleiotropic effects (many seemingly unrelated effects) throughout the body. Much of the research focuses on the role of the attractin gene in obesity and disrupting the normal behavior of the central nervous system (creating effects such as tremors). Additionally, the research I have been conducting indicates that there are two types of proteins coded for in the attractin gene: membrane- and secreted-type proteins. Membrane proteins are associated with the protective barrier (membrane) that surrounds a cell and secreted proteins are sent out of the cell, usually first passing through the Golgi complex for preparation to be excreted from the cell. The roles of these two proteins differ, which is why they were discovered independently of one another. Secreted-type attractin mediates monocyte (a white blood cell that ingests foreign material) spreading and T-cell (a white blood cell that searches for and destroys foreign material) clustering. The membrane-type attractin protein regulates agouti-dependent pigmentation, energy metabolism, and myelination (the gathering of tissue [myelin sheaths] around nerve fibers) in the central nervous system. Humans and rats contain both the secreted-type and membrane-type attractin, while mice contain only the membrane-type attractin protein. A majority of the studies concerning the attractin gene discuss attractin with reference to its many pleiotropic effects, and occasionally in relation to its role with the agouti gene in the pigmentation process. This research is fascinating, as a single gene holds such importance beyond coloration alone!

Baby Shrimp

This week has been fun. I first got to go down to Marana again and we collected some Talapia from the tanks over there; we also mixed in some fertilizer into the soil bed that we set up over there last week. After that I helped cut back some of the plants over in Marana, to make the place look a little nicer -because people were gonna visit soon.

I have also been keeping up with the Attriplex hortensis waterings, and have been feeding the fish regularly. The fish we got from Marana, Desiree and I weighed, measured, and then put into the greenhouse fish tank (so we can do some growth analysis later, and to add plant nutrients to the water.)

Also this week, I went down to the U of A veterinary building (over on the freeway) with my mom, and we picked up some baby shrimp for the shrimp tanks. We caught about 150 shrimp and I took them back into ERL and put 10 shrimp into each tank. We also set up a bio-assay for the shrimp using the Vsep water and 20 ppt artificial sea salt water. (After one day 50% died in the Vsep, and 0% died in the 20 ppt.) -Good thing we decided to not use the Vsep for the shrimp...

We have also noticed that some of the shrimp in the RO concentrate tanks are dying, so we will probably do a bio-assay for the RO water too.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

So I can finally say that I my uncle's show that I will be working on is Curb your enthusiasm! They sent out press releases this week which is why I'm now able to talk about it. Larry David is really pulling a lot of people into this season which will be really exciting. Filming for several episodes is going to happen in three days so things will be a little bit crazy but I'm really looking forward to it. And who knows I might come back this summer to take a more permanent role on the production staff.

Today was my last class of the 8 week session. I can't believe I'm not going to see these kids ever again. You don't think about how much time you spend bonding with them but it really adds up. At the end of class we asked everyone to share significant changes they've seen with their kids. It was really surprising to hear all the things parents notice on a day to day basis and how small changes are making a huge difference in their lives.

We also held a graduation party for the kids who are done with the program. The program is set up so that you do first an 8 week pons session and then an 8 week midbrain session, however; most people aren't done after that so they keep creeping and crawling sending regular updates to Brain Highways so we can track their progress until it's decided they're done. I knew a few of the kids from drop-in time but most finished the program several months ago. We had the parents also share their experiences from the start to end of the program and the changes in almost every kid was really dramatic. I'm loving getting to see how these seemingly basic things that people miss add up but knowing that there's a way to fix it.

Anyway now I have a couple days off so I'll be doing quite a bit of research while I still have access to so many colleges.

Two Turntables and a Microphone

The past 20 or so days with KXCI and the Rialto have been pretty interesting to say the least. KXCI has been deep in the spring membership drive, so everyone at the station has been emotionally drained due to asking people for money every 10 minutes on air for 2 weeks. Interviewing anyone at the station has been impossible because of this, but now the membership drive is over, so I'm going to start interview today or Friday. During the membership drive I continued to go on air with Cathy from 3-6pm every Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, but in addition to picking music/talking about music, I helped Cathy to do some pitching as well. Only thing I wish I was there for was when Janos came in, but unfortunately I was sick that day. Simply being at KXCI has helped my research into what community radio in Tucson is, as I get to see local up and coming bands, various organizations from the community, people of interest from Tucson and everything in between. KXCI has supported numerous non-profits with PSA (Public Service Announcement) broadcasts including the Community Food Bank, Center for Creative Photography, Women Behind Bars and Handi-Dogs. On average, KXCI runs about 35 PSA sports daily, around the clock, valued at more than $255,500 per year in service to the community. KXCI is more in tune with Tucson than any other organization in the area, which to me is pretty impressive.

Down the street from KXCI is my other internship/job, the Rialto Theatre. I've been going in noon to 3pm every Monday/Wednesdays/Fridays for the past couple weeks and helping with anything the booking department needs. Working there has really helped me to understand how the whole music industry works, which has been eye opening. For example, Stateside Presents is the largest booker of shows in the whole state, and it is essentially run by ONE guy, Charlie, who also hangs out and does his work in Tucson at the Rialto. Oddly enough, the majority of the shows he books are in Phoenix, while he lives in Tucson, but he does do co-pros (more about that in a minute) with the Rialto. Working at the office also has helped me understand not only how the Rialto books, but why certain shows happen at the Rialto. There are basically three kinds of shows that happen at the Rialto: co-pros, rentals and solos. Co-pros are shows that the Rialto puts on with help from one of the bookers like Stateside, Phenomenon, or ProMotion. Co-pros are pretty common at the Rialto, and looking at the calender we've got 7 co-pros coming up, including Mastodon, Calexico, and the Heartless Bastards . Rentals are when a booker rents out the Rialto for a show (like the AP Tour or Thrice). Rentals are really great because the Rialto gets guaranteed money from the booker and really doesn't have to worry about insurance, security etc. Finally, there's solo shows, which are shows that the Rialto puts on by themselves. These shows are also pretty common at the Rialto, with some upcoming shows featuring the New Pornographers, Drive by Truckers and Avett Brothers.

Okay, so I 've got lots more I could go on about, but I'll save it for whenever my next blog post happens, which will hopefully feature pictures of the Rialto/KXCI.

With A Thumb And A Bicycle The Possibilities Are Endless

Going from the South Fork Campground to Alpine Divide Campground. This was by the far the worst day of my entire trip. The morning started out great- as I previously mentioned the sun was shining and my destination was only 30 miles away. An easy 2-3 hour trip I figured. From the South Fork Campground I headed east towards Eagar. The first sign of bad luck struck when a little rottweiler chased me for half a mile down hwy 260. Not the end of the world, so I kept riding. Soon the wind picked up. The worst wind I've ever ridden in. It was blowing so hard, that if I stopped pedaling (going downhill) I would be pushed uphill. Going above 6 mph was out of the question. When I finally arrived at the campground 5 hours later, it was so snowed in there was no way to even get to it. I decided to keep riding into Alpine (another small town) just 8 miles downhill from where I was, and luckily the wind had finally ceased. I got there to discover that the Coronado trail/ hwy 666/ hwy 191 -the highlight of my trip- was closed 30 miles ahead. I was devastated and felt like giving up. Quite frankly, I just wanted to go home. Moreover, Alpine was buried under several feet of snow, and it was now snowing so hard I could hardly see in front of me. Camping anywhere in the area seemed suicidal. At the last minute, with the advice of a guy named Wes, as a last resort I hitched a ride east into New Mexico. I got dropped off a a campground at a lower elevation, and was able to setup camp minutes before the storm got there. It would snow for the next 15 hours.

The next morning when I got up and it was still snowing (after going to bed at 5) I skipped breakfast hoping to find something in the nearby town. So I loaded up my bike and rode an icy mile or two into a tiny little town called Luna. I stopped by the only store in town to buy some coffee before I kept riding onto Glenwood further south. After I bought the coffee and was about to walk out the door, the woman behind the counter offered me a seat next to the heater. I couldn't refuse. I ended up drinking six more cups of coffee, and stayed for several hours talking to this woman. After 11 o' clock I decided it was too late in the day to leave, and so Dianne (the woman working the store) offered me her barn to sleep in. That night I slept like a baby next to the her Alpacas, Goats and Dog.

The Alpacas were awesome, whenever my hands were cold, I'd just walk into their pin and stuff my hands in their fleece. Soooooo warm. The goats were pretty cool as well, although one got his head stuck in the fence in the middle of the night so he was rather loud.

The next morning Dianne gave me a ride into Glenwood and we made our goodbyes. I spent the day in town, went to The Catwalk (a very cool hike if your ever in the area) and then setup camp just outside town at a campground called Bighorn.

In the morning I woke to a man and his dog standing over me. He asked me if I was alive to which I responded, “Yah, still here.” We talked for a little while, his name was Bruce and he had been on the road for 7 years. He was living in what looked like a converted GMC milk truck with his dog Andy. After talking for a while, he invited me to breakfast, which I couldn't refuse. We went into town and he treated me to a nice conversation over coffee and biscuits. Later he told me, that it's rare he ever has someone to talk to, and that he greatly enjoyed my company- that was a great start to my day.

I left Glenwood around 10 o'clock headed for the Blackjack Campground on the Arizona New Mexico Border, right where the rim drops off. During the ride the idea popped into my head that sleeping in my own bed was going to be great. The idea took root and 40 miles later, just before the border, I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride into Safford. Once in Safford I got another ride to I-10. Once there I got picked up and was home before sunset. It wasn't the ending I had imagined but being home just sounded so nice- and it was.

Total, I rode my bicycle 400 miles and traveled 600 with a maximum elevational displacement of 8000ft, and end the end, every mile was worth it. It's not to say that there weren't hard times, but that is just a consequence of “Adventuring.”

Sorry that was a little novel-esk but here are some pictures for those of you with shorter attention spans.
These include pictures of my campsite outside of Luna, before and after the storm, the Alpacas, the dog Mishamar, The Catwalk, and a photo I shot on my way out of New Mexico. Thanks for following!

Brain Highways the Remix

So guys I have a video!! Yay! I will admit that I cannot edit or shoot video so most of the actual work was done by my cousin. It's just a brief view of my time. But I only had one day to take the video so there's not a huge variety, but take what you can get.

Just a warning it posted weird, it plays for 5 minutes but really it ends after about a minute and a half. So sorry about that, try to ignore it.

More gels

At this moment, I'm waiting in the lab for my gel to run. Also scheduled for this week, I'm going to purify some DNA so that we can send it in for sequencing.

Tsk Tsk Tsk, Someone Forgot Their Data.

Last week Baldwin Technologies gave a presentation to the rotorcraft folk at NASA and some Army higher-ups. It was the usual presentation: "Here's my really neat idea, I hope you think its useful, please give me money." Here's a cool video of his project (the Draft CONOPS video is the one).I thought the presentation was decent, it has some flaws but I've seen worse (my Capstone Physics presentation to name one). Apparently I missed something because every engineer in the branch was "furious" at some of the claims made by Mr.Baldwin. Before I can go into how he royaly screwed up, I must first explain the concept of downforce. So when you have a helicopter rotor spinning it takes the air from the top of the rotor and pushes it downward. This is downwash, the downward moving air. When this air encounters a surface it exerts a force on the surface. So Mr.Baldwin claims that by placing the wings of his mono-tiltrotor at a 20 degree downward angle with respect to the horizontal plane it reduces the downforce. All would have been fine if he had made this claim and shown the data that backed up his claim. But alas, he comitted the mortal sin of the academic community, making a claim and not having any evidence to support that claim. So because he "forgot" to provide the evidence and the engineers here diagree with him, I get to design an experiment to test his claim. We'll see what happens but the engineers around here are pretty certain he was doing the proverbial pulling data out of their.....aether.

The Attractin Gene

Realizing the time limitation for the senior research project, I have very clear goals that I will focus on for the remainder of my time at the laboratory. For the past few weeks, I have been optimizing a number of primers to amplify various regions of the attractin gene. However, in order to obtain sufficient data to create a research paper that includes results, I will now focus my attention on sequencing and analyzing three regions of the attractin gene, introns 4, 17, and 23, in the Kenzin population and some of the Carrizozo population. The attractin gene has 28 introns, so focusing on these three regions of the gene will allow me to obtain data that spans the gene to determine if variation in these regions of the gene is associated with coat color. I have begun my week by completing the steps necessary to sequence intron 17 in the sample of approximately ten light and ten dark individuals from the Carrizozo population. I have also continued the steps necessary to sequence intron 4. For intron 23, however, I still must optimize the primer before I can begin sequencing the samples.

As this week is spring break, the University campus is very quiet and the parking garage is very empty. However, the laboratory is still hard at work with each individual aiding in scientific discovery!

SHARE YOUR GOOD NEWS HERE

College acceptances are coming in! Here's what I've heard:

Sean Saleh got into RIT, RPI and UCLA, as well as UT Austin
David Stevens got into GA Tech and Purdue
Alex Davis got into RIT . . .and? let us know, Alex!

And EVERYONE who applied to U of A got in. (OF COURSE!)

Congratulations!

Post news here.

A Date With Eva!

So I FINALLY got a hold of Eva (she wasn't answering her email so I hunted her down on facebook and sent her a message) and she agreed to meet with me tomorrow at THS (where she teaches dance). This will certainly be a very helpful interview because I already have so much information on Deborah (it turns out she dated Corey Feldman!!!) and I've already started my paper (!!!) and more info on Eva and her thought process will be essential to a non-depressing start.
Also I just got through the section in my The Art of Directing book that talks about how much actual instruction the director should give to their actors (the first really useful section of this book) and it looks like Eva and Deborah both basically do what the book says (although I doubt either have read the book): for more experienced actors it suggests that the director tell them roughly where to go but that the actors should have a 5 foot bubble around them in which they should decide what they want to do. However it says that less experienced actors need more direction and should be told what to do and where to go so that they will have less to concentrate and mess-up on.
Wild Things is finally fully blocked (song and dance routines included) although most of the scenes are re-blocked every rehearsal. Many of the props they are supposed to use have not been shipped or made yet although the costumes look awesome. The show goes up in two weeks so it will be interesting to see them switch to a more intense rehearsal period (right now it is VERY relaxed, as you can tell from my knowledge of Debora's romantic life-she also knew Michael Jackson!)
Well, I guess that's all folks!

Recording with a Crew

The 11th marked one of the more professional recording days so far. Although we did take a bit of time to get serious, the shoot went well and everyone has a sense on how things are going to work in the future. Amateur film making is a little step different from the professionals in mainstream and indie film making because you don't need to follow as many of the "rules." I didn't come to the Chik-Fila with paperwork or agents to discuss how we use the the footage, I simply asked the manager if we would have permission to film and that I would not be bothering the customers and filming them. The filming only involved a conversation between two characters but many different approaches and shots so that there isn't a shortage of film to work with in the editing room. This first scene went pretty well in my eyes for being what I consider one of the harder scenes because it was more acting oriented than others. The crew consisted of three people for a two man scene and I'm happy to learn that I don't need to complicate things with all sorts of equipment around and people setting up all sorts of things for such a simple scene.

Hope to provide an extreme update for everyone again with a practice action scene but unfortunately not much filming will take place next week because my parents are taking me to visit my relatives in California. I can still work on edits and research as well as showing actors scenes from other movies to get an idea of how I plan for the scenes to work. I hope everyone is having a spectacular spring break as well, it feel like almost forever since I've seen one of those.

FIFO and LIFO

Okay so this past week I learned about LIFO and FIFO. LIFO and FIFO are two ways for a business to count inventory. LIFO stands for last in first out, meaning that the inventory acquired last is going to be sold before older inventory. FIFO stands for first in fist out, meaning that the inventory acquired first will be sold before inventory acquired later on. For example, say a business bought one tv on 2/10/09 for $200, another tv on 5/11/09 for $220, and a final tv on 7/23/09 for $250. Then, say two of the three tvs were sold, now the business does not necessarily know which two tvs it sold and therefore the business will use either the FIFO and LIFO method (there is one other method for inventory counting but I'm not including it in this blog). Using the FIFO method, the business assumes that the customers bought the tvs the business acquired on the 2/10 and 5/11. This means the total value of the costs of goods sold would be $420 and the ending inventory would be $250. Under the LIFO method, the business assumes that the customers bought the tvs the business acquired on 5/11 and 7/23. This means the total value of the cost of goods sold would be $470 and the ending inventory would be $200.The FIFO method has market-priced assets (inventory at current prices), undervalued costs (the costs of goods sold are at newer prices), overstated net income (revenues minus costs/expenses), higher earnings per share which leads to higher taxes and smaller cash flow. The FIFO method is considered the more conservative method of the two. On the other hand, the LIFO method creates undervalued assets (inventory at old prices), overvalued costs (costs of goods sold at newer prices), understated net income (revenue minus costs/expenses), higher earnings per share which leads to lower taxes and greater cash flow.

However, businesses might no longer be allowed to use the LIFO method. The Obama administration proposed to repeal the LIFO method of accounting for inventories. The proposal would not allow the use of the LIFO inventory accounting method for federal income tax purposes. Taxpayers that currently use the LIFO method would have to write up their beginning LIFO inventory to its FIFO value in the first taxable year beginning after 12/31/11.

Your best weapon may be your blowdryer

So this past week was pretty okay I guess, nothing too crazy.

I have been at the Resource Center keeping busy at my desk, which is cool. Megan had meetings like crazy, so she was hardly ever there, so I pretty much got the room to myself. I had my 60 day review on friday; they do 30-60-90 day reviews for all of their new employees just as a check up on how they're progressing. Mine was great; we went over my goals and how I'm achieving them, and how I've been liking it so far.

Oh snap, so they are letting me use the compnay card now, for legit purchases and stuff, so I basically get to sit there and shop online for stuff that we need. We ordered a flip video camera for Studio C, and we designed it to have the Gadabout logo and everything. Super cute. Went to Studio C on friday and saw Greg Laswell. It was fun; not one of the best, but still fun.

So about my goals. I started out with the desire to learn about what all it takes to run a business, specifically a salon. My focus hasn't changed; I'm still trying to figure out what really makes Gadabout tick. I'm definitely getting an insight to marketing because I'm working with Megan, which is great. After working in the location last week at the front desk, I grasped more of what kind of customer interactions need to happen. Frank, the owner, works also as a stylist, but only on thursdays, and its incredibly hard to get an appointment with him. But he offered to let me go with him one thrusday so I can see what he deals with all day, and how he deals, so I really look forward to that. I'm learning everyday that I am there and I love it love it love it.

Until we meet again,
Me

Clash of The Titans

During this week I began to notice a trend of increasing time spent in the lab. On Monday, as I mentioned, I spent my day cleaning tubes to be used for the RNA extraction that would be the primary responsibility for the next couple days. If I had to choose a moment in the whole process that was particularly eye opening it was when the RNA separated itself from the DNA and other assorted flotsam.

After three grueling days my shoulder was sore beyond belief, but Friday brought with it a different use for my time. I began the day using a web DNA catalog named BLAT (not misspelled BLAST), but I soon received a call from my advisor Mario in which he explained that in 15 minutes there would be a presentation given by Nobel Prize award winner Andrew Fire and that I needed to get to the other side of campus as quick as possible. The presentation was amazing, granted most of it was way above my head. The part that really spoke to me was his prediction of the iSequencer which would enable researchers to simply place their iPhone in the solution and subsequently receive their desired DNA sequence from it. Creation of such technology is almost certainly underway at Apple.

After a couple more hours of mind numbing computer work, I remembered my meeting with my PI was just around the corner. It is a rare opportunity to get to actually talk to Vicki only because her time is devoted mainly to her new position in the Moore foundation of Chief Program Officer. I will admit I was worried that unless I somehow demonstrated impressive ingenuity within the first 10 minutes I would find myself in hot water, so it came as a shock when she asked me how I was doing. Such a compassionate question from someone so powerful, I could not believe my ears. From that point on the minutes ticked by and we just shot the breeze exchanging stories ranging from weekend activities to the lack of power actors have in deciding the final product of a scene.

Shortly after that uplifting experience , I made my way to the Friday Lab meeting. It is always interesting to find out what the other members of the Chandler Lab are working on. The presenter was a lady who I had seen around named Maureen, and her work was focused around the BRCA1 gene. In my biology capstone I learned that this gene is connected to breast cancer, and has been in the spotlight because of the supreme involving the Myriad company and its patent on a early detection procedure. I won't go into detail there, but it is a strange situation indeed.

This meeting, like the others I have been present for, was filled with comments and suggestions from other members of the lab. Because of my lack of expertise in the subject area, I was not able to completely follow the presentation or actively participate in the conversation, but as a result I was able to see the lab meeting from a perspective I doubt any of the others present could. What I experienced can only be described as a bona fide intellectual flex off. The effect was that the meeting became a think tank of impressive proportions. Two hours later the members of the Chandler lab re-emerged from the dimly lit presentation room ready to put their plans into action.

And My Feet Were Always Cold

I'll pick up from Payson since that is where I rightfully left off:

Payson to Show low/ Pinetop was quite uneventful. Getting up the rim turned out to be much less difficult than getting to Payson. I spent my birthday riding out of a little town called Heber. Unfortunately this is the area that was heavily damaged from the rodeo-chediski fire back in 2002 and due to all the snow melt during the previous week, everything was muddy. It kind of looked like a fire ravaged swamp. Pretty soon I was in Pinetop and enjoying a delicious bean burrito. I spent the night at a friends cabin- that was Friday.

After long discussion regarding the weather, I decided to leave the next day. This is primarily because the road to the ski resort- the road I would be taking- was in the best condition it had been all season. However, I expected this to change do to the storm that would begin rolling through later the next day. So despite wanting a 0 day in a a cozy cabin, I headed out early in the morning in my attempt to beat the storm. Luckily I made it to my campground and was able to batten down the hatches before things got nasty.

On a side note, I later found out that after the storm hit, the road (once they got it back open) was in the worst condition it had been all season.

The campground was on the edge of a town called south fork. I could count the number of improved structures on one hand. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful area and everyone I ever saw there waved and smiled. The campground was awesome, The Little Colorado as they call it was flowing and ran right through the middle. Day one of waiting out the storm was long and boring. With nothing to do, and no one to talk to, the day seemed to last forever. All the storm brought me was rain. Day two was very different. That night it snowed for hours and hours on end. Sleeping was hard and the night was long. Luckily in the morning the snow now gave me something to do (gathering what was left of dry wood, making little trails, and so on). On top of the that, it appeared that the storm had cleared by noon and tomorrow I could leave. The day went by much quicker, and I felt quite accomplished. In the morning I got up to a blue bird day, packed up camp, and headed out to my next destination- Alpine Divide Campground.

Here are some pictures of my bike with with the rim in the background, my bike on and along the rim, my campsite outside Heber, and lastly some pictures of South Fork before and after the first part of the storm storm. The remainder of my trip to come soon. Enjoy!


>

Setting Up

So for this week, I've been watering the Attriplex hortensis on their scheduled waterings, and have been mainly focused on adjusting the fish tanks for the shrimp to start growing in.

So for the Attriplx hortensis, I have been and will be watering the plants every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I've noticed that the hortensis has already started growing at a nice pace. Also this week, for the progression of the Attriplex hortensis experiment, Desiree and I went down to Marana on Thursday and set up a soil bed (in which more Attriplex hortensis will be planted.)

The rest of my week consisted more set up of fish tanks for both irrigation of the Attriplex hortensis and for the set up of tanks for the shrimp. For the greenhouse, we've set up a big fish tank filled with RO water, and Desiree and I have put in 20 baby Talapia fish (in which we have also weighed and measured for a growth analysis of the fish.) The big fish tank will be used to draw water from and irrigate a section of the Attriplex hortensis.

As for the shrimp tanks... The Vsep treatment had way to much precipitate in the water, so we've replaced the Vsep water with 3 ppt artificial salt water. Also the fish in the shrimp tanks are getting used to their new tanks -as they are swimming around and ramming their own reflections rather then just hiding behind the filters.

So far so good, and next week we will have baby shrimp in all the tanks (which shall be interesting.)

"If you had a blog post, what would you title it?"

So... I figure I might as well join in on this whole "Blogging" thingymajiggy

What I'm doing right now: Calling loads of people and asking them questions.

What I'm really doing: Trying to figure out how in the world there can be so many different viewpoints as to what happens with a bit of information within a company.

Why I'm doing it: Well, without getting into too much techno mumbo jumbo, I'm trying to improve how an "Enhancement Request" goes through this software company. So basically when someone (usually a customer) wants a piece of software to do something it doesn't already do, they have an "Enhancement Request." Then someone takes this and, in theory, it gets prioritized in relation to other "Enhancement Requests." And then some programmer turns this request into reality, and voila! the software does something new.

The problem is that these "Enhancement Requests" disappear into a black hole of doom and despair. So what I have to do is travel through this black hole, into the land of doom and despair, track down these people who create the black hole and figure out how they do it. That's where I am right now. In a black hole. But I have a flash light :)

P.S.... My batteries are dying...... HELP! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME!?!?!

The Attractin Gene

I concluded this week by continuing my previous efforts in the laboratory of sequencing various regions of the Attractin gene. I focused on preparing samples from the Kenzin population for sequencing intron 4 of the gene. I fully realized the amount of PCR the laboratory has been conducting now that an undergraduate student and I work here more frequently, as the DNA samples are nearly all empty! Next week, I will thus have numerous dilutions to obtain DNA of the desired concentration for a PCR reaction.

I further continued my research of the attractin gene and its role in relation to the agouti gene, finding an article depicting the pathways of these genes in great detail.

I again look forward to another week of completing the steps necessary to sequence additional regions of the attractin gene and furthering my research on the subject.

More waiting...

Yesterday wasn't too eventful. I ran PCR again, and right now I'm waiting for the gel to run.

I've started applying brassinosteroids to my dwarfed Oleracea plants every day that I'm in the lab. I use a pipette to place 10 microliters on the point where new leaves are forming. From here, two things could happen. In one case, the plants might overcome their dwarfism and grow to the full height of an unmutated, wild type Oleracea. If this happens, the plants are brassinosteroid-sensitive, and that will tell us that the receptors are functioning normally. If nothing happens, we can conclude that the plants are brassinosteroid-insensitive.

We need a truck that will comfortably transport a particle accelerator that is eight feet in diameter!

       Hello BASIS Community! It's time for the summary of my third week at the museum. This week was precursed (I'm pretty sure that that is a word and Wikictionary backs me up) by the most wonderful of all weekends. Roller derby on Saturday and the Oscars on Sunday. I mean, could it get any better?
       On Tuesday, my adviser was gone all day for jury duty. Fortunately, she wasn't picked as the trial was a murder case and, if she had been picked, she would be involved with the trial for a month, which would have seriously messed up my project. I spent the day doing research and some data entry. At lunch, I went with several museum staff to a special tour of the Embrace exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. The DAM just built a new building and the whole point of the exhibit was to show off the space. The museum worked with several artists around the world to create temporary pieces of artwork wherever they chose in the new building, "embracing" the space. My favorite piece of artwork there wasn't part of the exhibit, but I will share it with you anyway. This is called Fox Games and it's by Sandy Skoglund, who is an amazing artist.

     Wednesday, I got to seal and stamp the museum's monthly bills and was responsible for putting them in the mail, which made me feel very important. I spent the rest of the day researching. I'm not sure if I've explained exactly what I'm researching yet. Basically, I'm trying to make the museum more accessible to people who wouldn't necessarily be coming to the museum on a regular basis, such as low income families, the Hispanic demographic, etc. I hope to do this though a dance program of some sort. So far, I have spent my time researching museums across the country that have successful programs (ICA Boston, MASS MoCA and the Kemper, to name a few) and trying to get in contact with the person at each museum who is responsible for scheduling. Next week, I hope to start making phone calls.

     Today, I started on a new, rather large project. The graphic designer at the museum recently left, so I'm taking on a small project she used to be responsible for. The museum's photographer takes a huge amount of photographs at every event (installations, openings, special events...) and delivers them on CDs. It is now my job to upload the photos to the MCA Shared Database and rename them all. There are at least 20 CDs and they each have upwards of 200 photos, so the project should take quite a while.