Thursday November 24, 2011

Well, today was of course another day spent in the lab. However, it was a very special day. I know that cookie day on Wednesdays sounds amazing. However, my favorite treat of the week is buttermilk biscuit Thursday. They don't make many of them and they put the fresh biscuits out at 10am for a work break on Thursdays. They even come with honey butter. I have been meaning to take a picture of this before but here is one now! MMMMMMMMM, don't those just look delicious! They are!

We took some pictures of fish today before staring our experiments. Here is a massive and egg bearing (gravid) Trematomus bernacchii. It is so big it can barely fit into one of the tank toys we put in there for the fish to explore. At the bottom left of the picture you can see a Trematomus pennellii. I ran an experiment on one of those later today too. The two fish at the top of the screen are both Pagothenia borkgrevinki.

We were able to get one more Gymnodracyo acuticepts (dragonfish) from a team on the New Zealand base (Scott base). That was the first fish that I ran an experiment on today.

Here are a few shots of the Trematomus pennellii from today's experiment.

Today was Thursday. We didn't celebrate Thanksgiving today though. We will be celebrating on Saturday. Everyone on station has the day off on Saturday and there is going to be a massive meal. Even bigger than our safety dinner. We even had to reserve a spot so that we actually could have a place to sit! Should be interesting! Well, that is all for now.

Wednesday November 23, 2011

Well, a while ago I had a request to post some pictures of "Cookie Wednesday." I thought that since I am doing nothing but lab work now, today would be a good day to get some pictures of cookie day. Sadly, there weren't as many cookies as I have seen on other "Cookie Wednesdays." I still got some good shots of the cookie spread today though.

Well, I did think of another thing that I could show you about my day-to-day activities. Every day that I run an experiment, I need to have 369 tubes labeled before I can start. In order to do that, I have to label those tubes the day before. So while my experiments are running, I am already preparing to run more the next day. Without Sandwich's help, this task of labeling tubes would be so much worse. So again, a huge thanks to Sandwich for always being so eager to help me, even when it is labeling tubes. She is an amazing lab mate! And she even practices her Condition Fun songs while we are working so it is like I am getting serenaded every day!

Here are a few shots of the tubes that I labeled today.

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.

Monday November 21, 2011

Today I began the marathon that will be two and a half weeks of 24 hour heat shock. So, I doubt that I will have many more pictures of fishing or penguins or seals. However, I will do my best to keep you updated on my day to day activities and try to still post as many pictures as I can.

In the mean time, here is a really cool video that Sandwich took of the fish in our tank. The strangest part about their behavior is that these fish live on the bottom of the sea floor. We normally catch them between 40-100 feet. So the behavior I am showing you is still strange to us because these fish rarely have access to open water, if ever in their lifetime. Yet, every time we go to observe the fish in the tanks, they all exhibit these kinds of behaviors. I hope you enjoy.

Sunday November 20, 2011

Sunday was another day to recover from the previous week. I ran four heat shock experiments last week and went fishing one day as well. Getting a day to sleep in and not have (a lot) of responsibilities once a week is so refreshing and really helps me recover/recharge for the start of another big week. I really didn't do much at all. I watched some TV with Isaac in the afternoon. Later in the evening, I went to the science lecture. It was quite interesting to hear another researcher talk about his project and see his take on it. What made it so interesting was that he also studies the Antarctic fish! However, they are very interested in cardiac physiology so we are not stepping on each others toes...which makes things so much less awkward!

Anyway, I didn't want to leave you with nothing so here is a time lapse that Sandwich took of her and me in the back of the Pisten Bully. It doesn't really give you a great idea about how incredibly rough of a ride it is, but it is funny to watch. Part way through, we asked Brad to stop so we could check on the fish and change out a bubbler. Then we start up again on our bumpy ride! Enjoy.

Saturday November 19, 2011

Well, we wanted to go fishing on Saturday but the weather just wasn't cooperating. So instead, I spent most of the day prepping for my many upcoming experiments. That is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Basically, I have to label 370 little tubes for every day that I run an experiment. And Sandwich and I did the math...I will be running an experiment everyday (except Sunday's) from now until December 6th if all goes as planned. If you know anything about science, things rarely go as planned so it is a good thing that I will have another 8 days before I leave to redo any experiments if something happens.

While I have no pictures from today, I will show you a fun time lapse video that Sandwich took of our team profiling a sea ice crack. We need to check the thickness of the ice and the width of the crack everyday before we cross it and then we need to report back to McMurdo so other teams can cross the crack without also having to profile it. We were working pretty quickly, but not nearly as quick as the time lapse shows. I hope you enjoy.

Friday November 18, 2011

It was another day in the lab all day. I have a feeling that I won't be going fishing many more times down here as we may have enough fish to complete all of our projects. But that is why we are here and it is very exciting and fulfilling to be running all of these experiments down here. I feel so lucky and honored to have been given this opportunity and I am trying to take advantage of every moment that I have.

While it was a lab day, I did make it to the mail room to pick up a package that my Mom sent me. Thanks Mom, you are so great! Everyone here loves the snacks you sent last time and I am sure they will love these as well.

However, I didn't want to leave with you nothing exciting for today so here is a video of the seal that I saw in our fish hut a while back. I had previously posted only pictures, but now I am able to post videos as well. The sound of the seal breathing was incredible. When I was standing above it, I was over six feet above its face (standing on top of the boards in the hut). Even being that high above it, when it would exhale, I could feel it on my face and it was intense! Enjoy!