Monthly Archives: October 2013

Like Button?

I wish there was a Facebook style “like” button on the blog posts. A lot of times I read the posts of other people and I like them but I don’t really have anything to say about them. It would be nice to have a button to click that allows the other person to know that I did indeed enjoy their words.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

After going such a long time without finding a phage I can kind of empathize with the man in this article. Although, I do promise not to try and infect anyone with leprosy.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/37619/title/The-Leprosy-Bacillus–circa-1873/

Interesting

I thought this short little article was pretty interesting.  I won’t ruin the surprise for you before you read it , but it is pretty mind blowing. Who knew all the crazy things bacteria are up to?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/aiop-utt102313.php

 

Comment on Setback by jadeconnor

Ugh! That must have been so frustrating! I will definitely take your word for it. Kirby was just saying today how glad she was that she kept her flood solution (she has used it three times since then). I will keep the advice in mind for when I get to that step.

Making Progress

Yesterday, I checked to make sure that my plaque assay still had phage in all of its samples. Thankfully, all samples had some plaque in them, even though they were not that many plaques in each agar plate. Things are finally moving along as I started my second set of plaque assays to make sure that I still have phage. I will check my results tomorrow and do my last set of plaque assay. After two months of constant failure, things are finally working in my favor for this project.

Real-life Jurassic Park

Researchers have found a fossil of a female mosquito embedded in shale sediments in Montana.  The abdomen of the mosquito is bloated with blood that is believed to be almost 46 million years old.  Even though the researchers say the DNA in the blood has long since disintegrated, there are still large traces of iron and porphyrin, both of which make up hemoglobin.

So unfortunately, they can’t extract the DNA and use it to grow dinosaurs.  Bummer.  I wanted to ride a pterodactyl.  But still.  Pretty cool.

Here is the link to the article on nature.com

http://www.nature.com/news/blood-filled-mosquito-is-a-fossil-first-1.13946

I’m dating a Jonas Brother!

Not really.

I thought I would describe my phage hunting like a girl who recently started dating a popular guy and brags about it to all her girlfriends.  Thank you, Bethany, for inspiring me to use music to help me blog.  Shout out to all my fellow former Jonas Brother fans – don’t be ashamed!  (The first line is from their song Video Girl, in case you were wondering the significance of that.)

 

“O! M! G!  Did you hear?  I’m dating a Phages Brother.  It’s soooo hot….

I’m dating Smeggy, the shy one.  We have bio lab together.  Of course, he’s not as popular as his brother, Arthur Phage, but he’s still a Phage Brother!  All the girls want them.

At first, I tried everything to get Arthur to like me; I cleaned his counter before he came to lab, I made sure he was nice and warm all the time, I even made his favorite bacteria food!  But he completely ignored me and was attracted to my lab partner who wrote cute notes to him every day.  I acted like I didn’t care but really, I wanted him all to myself.  I was so hung up.

Then, after a few more weeks, I heard that his brother Smeggy had noticed all the nice things I do and he thinks I’m cute!  So one day in lab, he introduced himself to me really shyly and politely.  Not like that arrogant, hard-to-get Arthur.  So we started hanging out in lab every day.  I could feel the chemistry.  After a week or so, he asked me to go out on date.  I was so flattered!  I couldn’t believe a Phage Brother would finally want to go out with me!

Our first date was so fun!  We went purifying!  Neither of us wanted to go home.  I wish that day could have lasted forever.  It’s okay though, because he asked me out on a second date!  I hope we go purifying again because I like taking it slow.  I want to go purifying at least three times before we take it to the next level in our relationship.

Yeah, so I guess you could say it’s pretty official.  Be jealous.”

Keep on Keepin’ on!

After checking my first round of purification it was easy to see that the single type of plaque I picked was the VAST majority of the plaques found on my plate. Even on the first plaque assay it looked like the strength of the plaque was already there. The only thing I need to do is isolate and purify!

But now I have to be really careful that I pick the same type of plaque because the second most prominent plaque on the first assay was adopted! Which is really funny. I’ll get to see two of mine “grow up”!

Also on another note here was my first blog a that I didn’t post correctly so it didn’t show up on Bears in the SEA! Its a bit long but, I wrote about my experiences in the first few weeks of classes and my background in the sciences.

 

 

 

My high school had bio 1 for freshman, all other sciences classes were mostly chemistry/physics (and saying physics is pushing it). But our chemistry classes were insanely good. There were classes like marine biology and zoology… but those were taught by football coaches and compared to my Organic, inorganic, and AP chem classes, they might as well have been electives. But through the awesome chem teacher I had through all of those courses, I learned that chemistry can be pretty awesome. (Hints my bio-chem major! So far.)

So planning ahead is something I’m always doing, so with my dad having majored in biology (from Baylor!) and my mom in chemistry, they were the first ones to tell me bio-chem is crazy hard. Alright. So, if i’m going to pursue bio-chem I have to know I really like it. So I wasn’t sure how I was going to see that until I actually had a bio-chem course! (But honestly I wasn’t too worried, I mean its the first semester of freshman year..) Then came this class, I was probably most nervous about this class just because the main thing I remembered for Bio 1 was making a cell cake! (and the different organelles were different toppings.. it was fun.. and tasty..anyways..) So I knew bio was going to be my real first challenge of college. When the first few chapters kick in we were talking about basic chemistry I was relieved because that was my domain of knowledge! So off to a good start. Then lo-and-behold, the super super basics of bio chem come in! And honestly the first sign that I think told me i’m heading in the right direction is when were discussing (really anything) I know there’s another layer below it as far as what the actual changes in elements of the processes are doing! And that’s super cool! So, so far looks like bio-chem might be something I could put 25 hours a day studying if I really am interested in it! (Hahaha see what i did? I know there’s only 24 hours in a day.) But time, and much more knowledge, will tell!

So as far as the actual genomics lab goes, at first I felt the same way I did towards the bio class. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into. But this past week I feel like was when the procedure and its purpose really clicked. While I knew what was going on earlier, now I feel like I could Email an old teacher about it and they would know what I was talking about! So i’m starting to really get into it a lot more now also because I truly understand what we’re trying to accomplish!

How to Calculate Titers!

Hey y’all!

I know that there has been a lot of problems with calculating titer (I know that it is hard for me to grasp exactly what needs to be done), but I have found this video on YouTube that has step by step instructions on how to calculate the titer of your plate. One of the professors from Ouachita Baptist University’s SEA Phages Program made the video pretty recently, so I guess her students are on the same step that we are. I thought it was really helpful in understanding what needs to be done and why you are calculating titer. She also explains it at a slower pace, which I know was beneficial to me. I think that now, when I get to that step, I will be more prepared for and efficient at calculating my titer.

Hope it helps you guys too!

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P14-ep2kag8

30 minute lab funsies!

I finished my third round of purification last week, and when I observed my plates, they were not contaminated. So, I was able to move onto the next step- flooding the plate that was webbed the most with 8 mL of phage buffer! The shortest lab ever!