On another note, it actually snowed this week. I can't even remember the last time I woke up and the ground was white. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad that it's back in the 40s again. Who knew that I could actually enjoy weather below 80 degrees (what is this blasphemy?).
As for new experiences, this weekend will be interesting. I can't remember the last time I had to change my clocks for daylight savings. What kind of nonsense is this? It just seems so inconvenient to change the time and lose an hour of sleep. It's not like the sun is staying in the sky for an extra hour or anything. I'm glad Arizona doesn't follow daylight savings - but then again, we get enough sun as it is. Why would we inconvenience ourselves for "more"? (Okay, maybe I'm a bit mad that I'm losing an hour of my day.)
I think my body has an internalized alarm clock, but I'm not sure yet. I'm not used to getting up by myself in the mornings since my mom usually wakes me up. (I know, I'm 18 years old, and my mom woke me up for school. And while I'm at it, I'll say that my dad still made my lunch. Sue me.). Whenever I set my alarm, I think I subconsciously get anxious that I'll miss the alarm, so I wake up around 30 minutes before it actually goes off. Does this happen to anyone else?
If there's one lesson I learned this week, though, it's that labs are not meant for short and/or small people (even if they're meant for working with small measurements). I mean, the pipettes can measure under 5 μL of fluid. I've never seen beakers so tiny either.
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Aren't they so cute? Shh, don't tell Kelly (the person training me) that I said that. He thinks it's weird that people call beakers cute. |
There are even smaller flasks than that. The two pieces on the left measure 25 mL. I couldn't find any dirty 10 mL ones to borrow for a picture. At least the lab has extra small gloves (but those are still too big. There's no winning. Sigh.). You would think that with all of these small things, that maybe there's be an extra small lab coat. But I guess that's too much to ask for. Don't worry, though; they still give some consideration to short people.
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See? I get my own stool. It was just kind of lonely so I claimed it. |
Okay, I think I'm done with my (not so) passive aggressive ranting. Maybe. But I have good news! All my liposomes were good this week, and I had to make six vials instead of four. I'm two for two so far. I wasn't so sure about my S31N liposomes (which have mutated M2 channels that prevent amantadine from binding) because I left the dried lipids out for a few hours. I wasn't expecting to do that, but when I couldn't find any S31N protein, I had to ask for more. Which led to the S31N samples being put into the photospectrometer. Then I had to learn how to convert the absorbance into an actual concentration. I suppose I wouldn't learn as much if everything was easy.
On this note, I have more good news (surprising, right?): we received new pH meters on Wednesday.
However, I learned that new does not necessarily mean improved. One of the pH meters was too "noisy," meaning that there was too much fluctuation in its readings. And the other meter just didn't work. So I only had one pH meter to use. To test six different vials. Twice each. And the tests last about 10 minutes every time. Yay. When I think about it, the situation is kind of funny. We get new technology, and it doesn't work, but the older technology works just fine. Oh, the irony. (Maybe I should use floppy disks and Windows 2000 more often.)
Overall, I think this week was filled with too much waiting. I had to wait for the concentrations of the M2 proteins before I could resuspend my lipids in solution. I had to wait to see which concentrations of the lipids and proteins that I should use. I had to wait for the filter supports to arrive (which they did on Wednesday). (Insert more discussions on lipid and protein concentrations here. I think we're back to using what I originally had in my last post. That's what I used anyways.) I had to wait for more CCCP because I ran out in the middle of my experiments. Thankfully, we found some in the freezer. (Not before I put everything away, though.) But, since my liposomes ended up okay, I don't think I can complain much. I just hope that I can test a drug that'll be a decent block against the mutated viral proteins.
I always feel like I have so much to say (well, to write). Maybe I should start posting twice a week.... I'm not sure my blog group would be too happy with that. Oh, well.
Until next time!
- Lauren
P.S. Success! I still managed to finish this on Friday, even if it is late. I hope I can keep my goal to post on Fridays to be somewhat consistent.
You know what would be even better than you getting a car? Me having a best friend who drives her own car and has two siblings who will let me ride their motorcycles. And, I have found that a lot of research is waiting, but it's all the more fun that way. Keep your head up (so you can see over all those tall things) because it looks like everything is going well in the long run!
ReplyDeleteShhh you we're suppose to know about the motorcycles. And by the way, same for me on the whole alarm situation.
ReplyDeleteYOU GOT SNOW LUCKY
ReplyDeletehaha So how exactly does a PH meter make 'noise', or fluctuations? What actually measures the PH of something in that device that is inaccurate despite the stuff it's testing remaining the same?
I think in my next post, I'll show what the "noise" is. It's basically really small fluctuations in the readings of the pH meters. The meters are actually measuring changes in the voltage; a change in the voltage is proportional to a change in the pH. The changes that I'm measuring are tiny - on the scale of 0.001 to 0.01. So I'm sure these pH meters are accurate, but when you try to measure something this tiny, there's always room for error (hence, the "noise").
DeleteHey Lauren, don't worry. The second motorcycle I bought last week came with a whole bunch of spare parts among which are Front & Back wheels with tires, Tank & Fenders, Handle bars, headlight. speedometer. front & BAck forks...... We are only a frame and a motor from a MC for you!
ReplyDeleteAnd I know what you mean about daylight saving time. I never had a problem with DST until we moved to AZ where we don't do it. Now we have to worry about what time it is everywhere else before we call someone!
I like your stool. You will always be my little Premie with those big eyes looking to defeat the next big challenge! Lipids and Proteins and Noise, oh my!
Yeah definitely post away, I really don't mind, and lord knows I've been posting a bunch. Even if I can't think of an intelligent comment to say, I am reading and following and it's an interesting blog! How much stress are you under over there?
ReplyDeleteI'm not feeling too stressed, but I might be mildly stressed and not know it. Compared to BASIS, working in the lab hasn't been that stressful.
DeleteLauren...you have experienced a couple of things that researchers frequently see.....new equipment may not be an improvement over old equipment, and......a lot of research involves LONG wait periods. I saw this during several internships I did during summers, where the actual experiment might only take 10 or 15 minutes, but the set up might involved hours. Plus, sometimes that means working into the evening, night or weekend. So much for plans and anticipated fun. Your blog is very interesting and informative too. The ranting is therapeutic. Keep up your good work.
ReplyDeleteThis is really eye opening about how real labs and experiments work. It sounds pretty stressful. Would say these experiments are fun to do, or just a lot of work?
ReplyDeleteI'd say they're both! The results are more interesting than the experiment, though.
DeleteHey Lauren,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you made a lot of progress so far, despite all the adversity (large gloves, dinosaur computers, snow, daylight savings time??)! I love hearing all these anecdotes about life in the biological labs. Good luck with the remaining research (and hopefully those pH meters don't act up too much...)