Blogs

I have surprising news to share this week—I made more calibration curves! The curve I made this week was for Thalassiosira pseudonana. It should have gone smoothly since I’ve made a bunch of these by now, but the data looked a little funky. The spectra didn’t have big chlorophyll peaks and the isobestic point was off. Ideally when working with SNARF all the spectra of the different pH should cross at one point which is the isobestic point.  The spectra I got all converged around the same point but it wasn’t as close as prior data that I’ve collected.

22 July 16

During this week, I gained a better understanding of the use of the HPLC machine. Earlier in the week, I assisted in making different pH buffers for one of the solvents for the HPLC machine. Another person working on the metformin project showed me how the HPLC machine worked, and how to understand the date the machine generates. This has helped me greatly in understanding how the results of my photodegradation experiments will be generated, as well as showing me how to troubleshoot anything that may go wrong in the HPLC machine.

I started off the week making calibration curves for two more organisms. I’ve gotten quick enough with the process that I can make a curve and test it on the same day now. On Thursday I was able to go out into the field with another grad student in the lab, Brittany, and see how water samples are collected. We went out to a site on the Columbia River and it was gorgeous! I enjoyed being able to get away from the lab for a day and feel the sunshine. The lab is so dark and cold that usually by the end of the day I've forgotten that it's summer. I also helped Rachel with her esterase project.

18 July 16

Started this week with Task List from my menotr's Charles and David. David came up to see how we're doing with the mySql and php scripts.

Here is the list of tasks that we need to work through, preferably over the next week. Let's focus on the query until it is done and then we can move on to the php.

SQL query:

Due to the 4^th of July, this week was slightly shorter. The phytoplankton seem to be growing quite well, appearing to have been entering the exponential growth stage during the early to mid portion of the week. However, this growth could have been affected by the three days of break over the weekend during which the culture was not swirled. This hypothesis will have to be confirmed by further monitoring this week. The flasks they are growing in appear quite green now and I am excited to see how they will do during the next week.