It’s going pretty well in the class I was worried about. There was a slightly rocky period for a few days where I retooled my brain to study for an engineering course (more drills, fewer lecture reviews). The first wave of practice problems really helped me dust off my algebra skills. Barring mistakes made when [...]
I’m starting Intro to Environmental Engineering Science today. It’s a bit like a quantitative sequel to the Env. Sci. course I just finished. The previous course emphasized the effects of oxygen sag downstream from a wastewater outflow. This course talks more about how much organic matter in a waste stream causes a dissolved oxygen decrease [...]
Lab was the pick-me-up I had hoped for. The lab manager accidentally made the Pseudomonas stock broth way too concentrated, so our plates came back covered in the stuff. They looked like giant, corroded pennies. The pigment was definitely neat. I took a whiff (and even convinced some lab mates to do the same), and while the odor [...]
Someone in the previous lab session threw out my plates, so no data on what’s in my kittie’s guts, and if their different diets affect what lives in them. Had to spend most of the lab sitting on my thumbs waiting for another group to finish so I could use their plate.
Got a [...]
Next lab is on bacteria of the GI tract. People with pets or babies were asked to volunteer to take fecal swabs. I’ve got two cats on different diets, so I’m excited to see if there’s any difference. Awesome wife isn’t phased by this, she even volunteered to be on poo patrol while I’m at [...]
One of the stations at the lab practical last week had us streaking skin swabs onto blood agar. That was my first time using that medium, I’m looking forward to seeing what grew. I chose to swab my chin, since I’ve got a beard, most people don’t pick the chin area, and beards may be [...]
In the spirit of the holiday, I present to you a bit of information on members of the informal genus Vampirococcus.
It’s a neat little bug that nestles next to members of Chromatium, forms a cytopathic bridge, and sucks out all their yummy cytoplasm. You generally hear about it as an example epibiont when people discuss [...]
We’re halfway through the halfway point of Open Access Week 2009. The basic idea of open access is that we all benefit if results from research are published online for free. The site does a good job of explaining why this is so, and I leave it to people who deal with journals on a [...]
The most recent lab was spent testing antiseptics and disinfectants. We were tasked with bringing in something from home. I didn’t want to be student #1000 who brought in mouthwash or bleach, so I asked myself what would John Wayne do?
He’d bring in the same whiskey he just used to wash out the bullet hole [...]
My prof is big into metaphorical explanations.
She often refers to enzymes as Oompa-loompas, I think this is a perfect way to think of them.
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