Jacqueline Hayes's blog

Since we are so close to finishing I started working on my poster at the beginning of the week. This allowed me the time I needed to complete my poster up to the point I was currently at with my data. I even added color to the Sigmaplot graph to make it more appealing on the poster, since normal publication graphs are displayed in black and white. I also did whatever maintenance was needed around the lab during the week.

During the previous week before Rachel left for her workshop in a different state for a week, I was given a list to accomplish by the end of the week. Last week I discovered while processing the data that one of the runs for the set point Labview VI program was jumping randomly up at the tops of each peak after the last sample point. In order to assess if the problem was programmatic I ran the biotic 24 hour run again on Monday once I came into work. During that day I also finished data processing for one of the runs and even did some more lab cleaning by acid washing some new materials.

Once again I began the week by preparing for a 24 hour biotic run on the pHstat, using the pH gradient Labview program instead of the pH set point program. This program also needed to be tested in triplicate with the same times and type of sampling throughout the 24 hours of experimentation. I started the first experiment on Monday and it continued till Tuesday. All of the data was collected and processed on Tuesday. During my downtime between sampling points I continued to process the previous data and any maintenance needed around the lab.

I began the week by checking on the pH drift of the pH meter that had been sitting in a culture over a 72 hour period. Then I once again started a 24 hour biotic run with the pH set point program. This needed to be run in triplicate to assess the consistency of the program. This run also had sampling points at specific times collecting DIC data and the values of chlorophyll within the culture. This run lasted until Tuesday.

At the beginning of the week I was once again waiting to continue my project in some way. I continued to do more acid washing and maintenance work in the lab. Due to Rachel’s work in the radiation room, I even refreshed the batch cultures for further experimentation. Since I did not have much to do this week, I helped out with a different research project at Portland State University on Wednesday. I helped out by counting the amount of germinated seedlings in each pot and removing them so that even more seedlings can germinate in the future.

                Since I was still waiting to continue my work with the pHstat, I was around the lab helping the other PHD and Masters students the rest of the week. The first two days of the week I was helping out a Masters student in our lab with her cultures. She had cultures already started and I was checking them to see the purity of the cultures so that only a singly type of phytoplankton remained. During this process I learned how to do single cell isolation, which takes a lot of work and patience.

During this week, there was not much for me to do within the lab. Once the biological experiments had been set up in the mornings or the afternoon before, they did not need much maintenance. So once again for this week I did mostly lab maintenance such as acid washing and odd jobs for anyone within the lab as needed.

Once the problem was fixed I needed to test the amount of pH buffer that was needed for the system. This ended up being ±0.03 pH units from the guide pH. This allowed the system leeway so that it did not need to work as hard over a long period of time. From there I helped with starting the biological experimentation. This took the rest of the week, because we kept having problems in the middle of the night since the test took 24 hours. The first time all of the equipment turned off with the timer.

Now that I was once again reacquainted with the pHstat, I continued on with testing for the optimum alkaline reagent concentration for the system. The system was perturbed within an abiotic environment using sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. Originally I used sodium bicarbonate as the alkaline reagent during testing, however after many different concentrations ranging from 0.05M to 1.1M it was discovered that sodium bicarbonate had a pH threshold.

It has been a year since I was last working as an intern with Rachel Golda at OHSU. During the first week I spent my time becoming reoriented to the lab and my project. Not much had changed since I was last here, so it was fairly easy to go right into working on the project. On the first day my job included making multiple types of media for the algae that I would be using later that week. I made many liters of each so that it would last for a while. Once the media was finished I began the project that week.