Goin' A'ponderin'

Let me update you on just a few random things that have been happening in the lab:

1. Lets talk about packing and shipping. Its always very exciting to get a new gift! Even if the "gift" that you get solidifies your spot in the world as a total nerd-bomber, its still a fun thing. So I like to look at what I order to do my experiments as gifts, then its always fun when they come in, it feels like a dorky little Christmas! However, there are a few disheartening things about receiving packages, the main one would be the packing. Hopefully nothing is broken of course but beyond that it just takes forever to get to the good stuff... take the example below: 

It would seem as though this large box on the left contains a large something, or a small child, but you can see the progression down to the right to a  very small bottle that quite frankly just took too long to get to. You know when you have a use a hammer to open something in a cardboard box you might be dealing with something shady. Or toxic. Whichever... on to my next note.

2. The birds are back in town. Although a few weeks ago it looked as if the humans were making triumphant steps towards bird elimination at the doo door I am sad to say the birds have overcome and are striking back... and this time they are hitting their mark, or Dan in this case. 

It seems as though the nicer the clothes you wear, and the blonder your hair is the more The Birds resent you. Its a sad thing here in the lab, to be afraid to go out your front door. But it is far worse in other countries. We do still consider ourselves lucky for the lack of doody-mess at the other doors. 

3. I've made a janky dip-coating device. I will have to elaborate more on this later due to time constraints but you don't want to miss out on the gear grinding action! Literally. 

~ Last Week

I never know how to start a post so I'm just going to dive right in:

I gave a presentation yesterday that I hadn't looked at for a week and a half due to being out of town. Were you on vacation, Kaitlyn? (you might ask) Well unless you call leading a cabin of 10 middle school girls vacation than no, I was not. It was actually an anti-vacation. But loads of fun and productive, just not restful/ peaceful/ rejuvenating or anything like that. 

Anyways, my presentation, it was on my results! Which is good, and my point, that I got results last last Thursday and was somewhat able to interpret them and get reasonable answers! Problem is that the ways to test for results are somewhat ambiguous but for now I'm fine with them since they at least don't scream "YOU'RE DOING EVERYTHING WRONG!"... They could just being saying "Hey you don't know what I mean". I feel like its fairly obvious that you're tired when you think results are actually speaking to you.

So the results that I'm looking for include but are not limited to:

• Orthogonally tilted pores
• Accessible pores
• Pore size around 5 nm
• Thickness of the film around 240 nm

So to test the orthogonality of the pores we use X-ray Diffraction or XRD but the expected results are no results. This is what I'm talking about:

H.W.Hillhouse et. al. Micropor. Mesopor. 

Materials 2001 44-45: 639 

We can see that for the first example with the perpendicular pores the related intensity has no peaks. However no peaks can mean perpendicular pores (which is what we want) or it could mean complete disordering to the pores (which is not what we want)! Clearly there is a problem. 

Now to test the accessibility of the pores and to also get a pore size I did a flux test using ethanol and this nice little setup:

The membrane is inserted between the clamp above

Right: Vacuum Pump with adjustable pressures in order to obtain a linear relationship
Left: Filtration setup to filter ethanol through the membrane setup on the top

I was able to obtain a flux which is good... or bad, once again. It could be good because it could mean that the pores are accessible, however it could be bad since it could mean there is just a crack letting the ethanol through. But I got a pore size around the size of what the literature had as well so fingers crossed!

This week we will be attempting to create more solid and less ambiguous ways of characterizing the membranes so we can attempt to recover proteins from them. 

Interpretation of an enzyme

Having not have taken microbiology (or any biology for that matter since sophomore year of high school) and coming into research that has most everything to do with the subject I've struggled somewhat wrapping my head around the concept of enzymes and bacteria and the whole lot. Since my mind works in metaphors most of the time I've decided the best way to understand this is to go about visualizing more common and more easily learned concepts. For instance this is how I view an enzyme:

The enzyme is the pacman and what it "chews" on are the yellow balls and fruit. Now the blue ghost guy is its inhibitor. When it runs into that thing it can't "chew" anymore, or at least can't be productive. Now here's the drama: When my enzyme, cellulase, chews on yellow balls and fruits, cellulose, it breaks it into cellobiose which is dum-dum-dummmm... the BLUE GHOST, aka its inhibitor (I realize this isn't how the pacman game works). Well its a good thing that the package that contains the pacman is connected to a bacteria that turns this blue ghost into ethanol or a proverbial pot of gold (not actually related to pacman but it translates easily).  This ethanol can be used for fuel, yes we know, so its pretty valuable. 

So now you're wondering what is going to happen when the bacteria has had enough of this blue ghost/cellobiose. Well it stops producing the ethanol because it stops breaking down the cellobiose causing there to be an excess amount which inhibits the cellulase from chewing on the cellulose. What a tangled web we weave. Well this is where I come in, theoretically. I want to separate the products (like ethanol) from the cell so it will continue to break down the cellobiose and create more products. More products=More ethanol, More ethanol=More fuel. 

BTW: its not actually an ethanol by corn project, cellulose is found in many other places. 

Doo Door.

I feel as though coming to work is a relatively pleasant experience for me. Even when I have to get up early I see the sun, feel the warmth on my pasty skin, and see the playful squirrels scattering along the campus pathways. However, literally going into work, as in entering the ASTeCC building, has become a war zone. 

In Figure 1 it can be seen that the door in which I enter to go dutifully work is situated  in the heart of conflict amongst two buildings. It seems as though The Birds have taken it upon themselves to wage war upon the humans, blond in particular it seems.

Figure 1. The door leading into ASTeCC, conveniently sandwiched between two rather tall buildings.
 

A demonstration of the unnatural amount of poop accumulated in between these buildings is shown in Figures 2 and 3. As is clearly seen, this location is unsafe for many a fellow to venture upon. It is my hypothesis that The Birds not only utilize the force of gravity to create splatterage and a high velocity, but that they also exert an intense amount of pressure when releasing The Package to heighten this already speedy velocity and to maximize the splatterage.

 Figure 2. The aerial view of the steps proclaimed out of bounds for humans by The Birds.

Figure 3. The view from directly above the treacherous battle grounds of The Bird feces.

It has come to my attention that this excessive splatterage is dangerous for several different reasons. Those reasons being:

• Even if The Birds shoot a near miss it is possible to make a hit due to splatterage of large droplets upon legs, socks, and shoes. This has been documented by several credible sources (one being myself). Therefore an almost hit turns into a detrimental experience for the human.
• When splatterage occurs this gives The Package the chance to be inhaled by the humans. Histoplasmosis is a fungi released in The Bird droppings that can create an infection in the lungs causing:
• Chest pain
• Cough, possibly coughing up blood
• Fever
• Shortness of breath
• Sweating
• Headache
• Neck stiffness 
• Mouth sores 
• Skin lesions
• For more information you can visit this website.
• Even if there isn't a human around, if there is splatterage it increases the surface area available for the next passerby to walk through the trappings.

With these in mind this entrance has become an "enter at your own risk" area. One must listen for the sound of droppings and must look for the eyes of the beast luring above. Figure 4 shows the accumulation of droppings obtained by a courageous window sill attempting to shield the humans.

Figure 4. The Birds large attempt to exterminate the human race. Feces were trapped by this unfortunate window pane.

In conclusion I have developed quite the ill will toward The Birds taking roost up top of the ASTeCC building. I have not decided whether I will wave the white flag of surrender and enter though a different door or if I will stick to my guns (or buy one) and keep using the Doo Door.