Scientist In Training

Yellow Lichen

Velella velella, or by-the-sea sailor, a type of cnidaria. Found all of these a couple of weeks ago at Wilder Ranch State Park.

I believe this is a Rainbow Jellyfish. I shot this at The Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Cuttlefish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

(photo by scientistintraining) Happy lab appreciation week!

(All facts basically taken word for word from here and here).

mould specimen in glass jar by elinart

I took these photos back in 2005 when my psychology teacher gave us the assignment of building a neuron out of whatever material we wanted. My friend and I are candy obsessed, so of course we made the neuron out of cookie dough, with M&M axon terminals, circus peanuts as the myelin sheath, a Neco with chocolate for a nucleus and Twizzlers as the axons and dendrites. We of course made this on Saturday and turned it in Monday, so to protect our neuron we sprayed it with hair spray (I have no idea why we thought that was a good idea-it smelled terrible).

Unfortunately, I am not the person to ask for this, I have very little molecular knowledge. Of course the one person I know personally that would be able to help with this information no longer updates their tumblr, so I can’t send you there. Perhaps one of my followers can help you though!

I'm amazed at the variety of glassware sizes in the laboratory.

This is my Southern blot tower. I take a gel that is thinner than your average gel (literally think of a square of clear jello about 8"x8" that is floppy and fragile). I take this gel that is full of important DNA fragments and I flip it upside down and line it up with a piece of paper and then load all of this stuff on top of it. Basically it was scary and nerve racking (this thing takes 3 days to set up so a mess up means starting over next week since it's a 5 day process) and I'm so happy it's over. My trainer gave me a round of applause since it was my first Southern blot by myself.