Week 3

This week was difficult for SEM. I’m a bit backed up, and SEM is time consuming. Also, I realize after this week that it’s very important to get the SEM done as quickly as possible in order to get the best results. The pictures after storage just aren’t the same. We also coordinated with forensics on the imaging of our Nile red stained plastics (see my personal picture below). They are sharing a camera for a trinocular dissecting scope. We hope to be able to image the filters with plastics and then estimate plastic contamination. It’s the first time that we’ve really branched into doing any of this kind of quantitative analysis of the contamination ourselves. It’s really interesting. We’re also working on preparations for a couple of research presentations.

Week 2

This week I tried to really get back into the swing of things with SEM. It seems like I’m moving slowly with it to me which I’m concerned about because I want to get through all the back samples. This is especially important to me since the samples that have been in storage don’t have bacillus structures within their biofilms. I really feel like it’s related to the amount of time in between collection and analysis.
I talked to some professors about our protocols for FTIR, and they suggested that I go back to my resources and double check protocols in the literature. I’ve started doing that and already had a bit of luck! Also exciting, we found and shared an article with our Chem PI, and we’ve made a breakthrough on discovering what some of our peaks might be.
I hope that we can get some good conclusions before posters and abstracts need to be done. I’m really proud of the progress that we continue to make.

Dr Ong happened to drop in while I was in SEM, and he showed me a new addition to his microscopy lab. The image above is a penny. The color was a bit more green in person. I was thinking about painting some of our home this color. Dr Ong looked a little shocked about it when I told him so. Anyway, it was interesting that you can totally see Abraham Lincoln inside the monument. I guess that he was always inside on older pennies. I love that a little.

Week 1

It’s week 1 all over again. I’m so excited about our experiment! We’ve finally gotten over 100 days!!! We made some decisions about the best way to process our FTIR samples going forward. I’m taking organic chemistry this semester, and I’m hoping to get a better handle on what exactly I’m looking at on our FTIR. The bacterial films have really been interfering with us getting a good idea of anything that might be happening to only the plastic. Now that we are more confident about removing them, we can get some preliminary FTIR data on the plastic without the films in the way. We’re going to be examining nutrient depletion a bit more going forward. To that end, we are waiting to see the results of a peptone dilution on the growth of the bacteria without any addition media. Lots of interesting things happening. :-)

Week 12

I have been working very hard to complete all of my work without falling too far behind while keeping up with all of the activities that I love so much. My family has been very patient with me. We are making it work. I will be graduating in the spring!!! Let me just enjoy that for a few seconds... That means that I'll be transferring to ASU next fall. ASU is way more expensive than PC. There were a handful of scholarships due the week after midterms this semester. I was notified on the 12th that I GOT ONE! I'm so excited and honored to have been awarded the All Arizona scholarship. I will be representing PC as the All USA nominee. The scholarship will help me by paying for 64 credits at ASU. I don't think that it's a stretch to say that it is going to be life changing. Shout out to STEAM Club and Phi Theta Kappa. I'm pretty sure that I just raved about how awesome and meaningful your events were on my application. I'm so grateful to have the support and opportunity that I have at PC. My time here has been precious to me in a way that I hadn't anticipated.
For research this week, I went on a hike at Oak Creek Canyon. It was beautiful. I was so worried about everything that I needed to get done that I almost didn't go. I'm so glad that I did.

Week 11

STEAM Day was this week! I've been working with the STEAM Committee for months leading up to this event, so I was extremely excited. It came together great. It's one of my favorite events that we've ever had. Nearly every table  that I visited had information on available internships. The Department of Environmental Quality was there! I'd love to intern with them. The STEAM Club has been working on the music bench since nearly the beginning of the semester in preparation for the event. It came out great! We still have some finishing things. We couldn't have done it without James Peterson from the Chemistry Department.

I also did some SEM on 28 day plastics that I first treated with a specific detergent. From just these pictures it does appear to remove the biofilm more effectively than alcohol alone. There is still small amounts of biofilm on the plastics. It's become problematic for our FTIR because out spectra includes the biological material, and we are only interested in the plastic. We can't use detergent on an FTIR sample though. It works for SEM.

Week 10

The symposium was this week! Oh my goodness, I swear I wore no more than a 1 inch shoe, and I ended up with 6 blisters on my feet. I haven't had issues with the shoes before, but I haven't tried to walk a half mile in them either. The campus is so big. I always joke with people that after being at ASU Tempe I understand how skateboarding can be a valuable life skill. I don't know how anyone wears anything but tennis shoes there. I wanted to wear something a little more professional, but I have seen the error of my ways. I only had to walk one way on top of that. I managed to find a ride back to the parking garage.
The symposium itself was good. There were interesting projects and helpful talks related to careers. I did Much better this time around on the lightning talk. It was good overall. I wish that I had more time to look through some of the other posters. I only made it through less than half.

Week 9

This week we're working very hard on our poster in preparation for the BioSci Southwest Symposium at ASU Tempe. I actually submitted individually with the research that I worked on over the summer and was chosen for a lightning talk. I always forget how far I've come learning to work on the formatting and choosing poster content until I have the opportunity to help someone else. I think that I get so focused on moving to the next thing that I need to learn that I don't stop to appreciate all the work that I've already done. I'm going to try to work on that in the future.
I've done almost everything for the research that I will be presenting, but I was on high alert when I realized that I didn't have pictures of one of the plastics at the time point that we needed. I rushed to SEM and ended up getting good pictures, so it worked out. We also gathered and formatted some other things. Below is a picture of Ruben working hard to punch PVC. He's never punched plastic before! We had a bit of fun initiating him. :-)