Tuesday November 22, 2011

Today was another day full of experiments. I ended up staying up till well after 3am so it got pretty late. However, I did get some pictures today so I will explain them. In the morning, Isaac and Sandwich got started on one of Isaacs experiments in which he is isolating individual liver cells and then heat shocking them at different temperatures. However, he will not be examining gene expression/protein regulation as I am. Rather, his focus will be on cell viability and apoptosis. Here they are starting the first experiment of the day.

No pictures of me setting up my experiment, but I have been wanting to show you some of the other strange behaviors that our fish exhibit. I showed you the video of them spraying water at us and coming up to the surface etc previously. However, this tends to be what they do most of the time. Sandwich calls it "Pig Pile." They all find one spot, usually on the outside of one of the isolation cages and just all pile up on it. Or they pile up on the bottom. But no matter where it is, they love to "Pig Pile."

Finally, something I am quite proud of. I had been having some difficulties with making sure all of my tubes that were floating in water did not tip over. The little "floaties" they were sitting in kept getting tipped over by the current in the water bath. So I channeled my inner MacGyver and made some of my own floating "mats" out of foam. No tubes have tipped yet and I was pretty happy with how easy they were to make.

Well, that's all for now.