Blogs

 Wow that last week went really fast. Using the new 28S primers I developed, I finally got the right product for the 28S region. We received the sequences on friday and running through the NCBI Blast program confirmed a match to Katablepharis 28S. Now we have about 2/3 of the 28S sequenceBefore the Primate Center closed on Friday I rushed over some samples to be sequenced with more primers. Hopefully we can get that whole sequence next week.

Last night I succumbed to a sudden bout of uncharacteristic sentimentalism.  With my internship was drawing to an end, I had a sudden urge to learn Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) by Greenday on guitar at 1 AM.  As I was strummed and sang, my brain automatically translated some of the lyrics into Matlab code.  This is gonna sound lame, but it demonstrates how far Matlab has merged with my psyche.

It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

This week we have been working hard on my paper for possible publication, creating graphs, counting M. rubra cells, and creating powerpoint for presentation..Fun times..

This final week was mostly spent working on my final paper and final presentation.  I also made more dsDNA targets to increase Sharp's stock.  One of my summer goals was to compare ssDNA and dsDNA target data, but there was not enough time to use the ssDNA targets I prepared.  Luckily, I will be returning in the fall as a Masters student, and will hopefully be able to continue on with this project. 

 This week was the very last week of the internship. All week I worked on my final report paper and my Final Presentation. Thursday and Friday were the days we all presented our presentations. We all did great.

This internship was a great experience all around. 

During my last week as a summer undergraduate intern at CMOP, I managed to squeak in one more persulfate decay study. All of my solutions thus far have been fairly pure, filtered samples. For this study, I wanted to simulate (to an extreme) the effect of metal ballast tanks. I gathered three kinds of solid iron samples: Fluka filings, cast iron powder, and electrolytic grade iron powder. With 5 g iron in glass VOA vials with 40 mL of DI or Instant Ocean water in each, we aggitated them all weekend to simulate natural oxidation.

I tested synthesis of nZVI using high pH borohydride solution. The reason for this test is that the BH4 can react with water while it is being "waited" to be added to the synthesis chamber. The reaction process includes a equilibrium where OH is produced. Thus, if we increase pH, it is possible to "stop" the BH4 from reacting with water. When I tested, the minimum pH to stop BH4 from reacting with water was ~pH 12-13. I went ahead and synthesized FeCMC-BH. It failed, as the nZVI formed was not nanosized; it was in mm~cm rather than nm in size.

This week was a hard and sucessful week in my research project, because my mentor and me find results that contribute in a good way to the SATURN-03 endurance station.
The results are that we can extract the bad data and save the good from the Pre-August 2009 data set.

On Monday, I worked on my presentation to present it on Tuesday.
 On Tuesday, all the interns in Tebo, Haygood, and Simons Labs did their practice talks in our lab meeting.
On Wednesday, I got to used a Petrographic Microscope to look at the same samples I looked at with the OLM. It was very interesting to see the different colors in the thin sections.
On Thursday and Friday, I worked more on my Presentaion, adding some suggestions from my practice talk at the lab meeting.