Blogs

At week 4, I had the zigzag mission put on Google Earth, but without depth. Now this week I had to figure out how to add depth to that line. It was a tricky approach, because I had to eliminate certain points in order to draw the line on Google Earth. As exciting as this may sound, it took me quite some time to figure out what to do, because I could’ve done this in two ways: one way would be to eliminate those points by using SQL and the other way was by using Python to get rid of those points.

This week has been a week of learning with some frustrations.  We have been trying to run PCR on two of our samples and we jsut can't seem to get the results we are looking for.  The first time ran a the PCR we had no aplification and the second time we ran it the positive didn't amplify.  The third time we ran the same PCR we had more amplification but some of the 12 C labels didn't amplify and they are supposed to always amplify.  This was concerning because it could have meant that we didn't have any DNA after cleaning the SIP.  So I ran a gel to be sure tha

this week i met a couple of times with my mentors about my project. they are excited and very encouraging and helpful about my future. opportunities and connections that my mentors suggest are opening alot of doors for me and at the same time giving "tough love". i have been glued to the internet, trying to figure out "salmon". i understand why it is important but not sure how to channel that information to an audience- who don't or kinda understand salmon relation to native americans.

This week i was still reading and taking notes. I met with my mentors a couple of times. i was confused about my project so i became "focused". I was doing extra work for the BIG picture and felt relieved that I wasn't the only going crazy about a thesis subject, just part of the process. now that i have a better and clearer idea, i have to go back and think on my ideas and make outlines. i am going to seaside this weekend and i know i won't have time to do work so my new thoughts will have to wait until monday.

 This week, I went out sampling with Jami on Monday and Tuesday. We went to a few creeks, two rivers, and three waste water treatment plants. It was interesting to see how Jami's sampler works and to see the inside of the WWTPs. Also, llamas! I didn't know farms in Oregon raised llamas! Ha!

This week I put together the basic components of my GUI. These components include a graphing axes, pop-up menus for the user to select variables given a time range and station, options for selecting and flagging data, and push buttons to allow the user to submit the criteria to the database. Once I had the graphical components together, I worked on the background coding to allow the input to interact with other components to provide the desired output.

This past week I did FISH on B.pacifica and looked at my samples under the confocal microscope. To my surprise, I found a lot of bacterial cells that appear to be related to E.sertula! It was an exciting week - I took lots of images of what I found and marked each ovicell I looked at for future inspection (I need to be able to estimate each ovicell's developmental stage). My ultimate goal is to show a timeline of ovicell development followed by images that show the bacterium's location within the ovicell.

Week 4

So today was my first day (of five) in Corvallis at the Oregon State University campus. I really have to start by mentioning how beautiful some of this campus is, although to be frank the town isn't all to my liking at first glance.

   Finally, I get to actually jump into my project.  We recieved some data from the LISST 100x that we needed to process.  I had to do a couple of things before we could do this .  I needed to research all of the variables involved with the system.  Last week I compiled a list, but now I needed more information on each of the variables.  I thought that this was going to be a simple task, but unfortunately was a bit mistaken.