This morning when I came into the lab, I had started to prepare another experiment for testing how magnetism effects the luminosity of the mucus of Chaetopterus variopedatus when I realized that I had no large pipette tips to use. So I pulled out the big plastic bag of sterile blue tips, collected all the empty containers, and proceeded to fill them up (which can be a very arduous process as it involves putting the tips one by one into the holes in the container, all the while wearing cumbersome latex gloves).
Anyways, after I had finished restocking the blue pipette tips, Dr. Deheyn arrived in the lab and showed Zach and I a light-emitting diode that needed to be soldered to the ends of a solid core wire. Of course, I have never soldered before and Zach said that he had, but many moons ago. So we proceeded to fumble about with the smoldering hot soldering iron, solder, and LED while still wearing our hindering lab gloves out of force of habit, and trying to direct the melting drops of solder onto the barely touching wires and leads. We were inevitably unsuccessful. And then Zach had to head up to the Main Campus to attend a class. But I persisted to try and connect the two tiny pieces of metal with more metal and finally succeeded in connecting one lead. However, in the process of trying to solder the other one together, the first one broke and I consequently gave up. "Aspiring Biologist Fails at Extremely Basic Engineering" the newspapers would report, my brother (who is attending MIT next year most likely to be an engineer and who has soldered to bring a tube amp and LED cube to life) would shake his head in shame, and any aspirations I had in the field of bioengineering would be crushed, despite the marvel of modern bioengineering, that amazingly complex apparatus known as the Ossicle Sorter.
However, when I told my brother the engineer about the situation, he questioned me on the size of the leads (two little pokey metal thingys that stick up from the LED, onto which we were soldering the wires). I told him how tiny they were and he replied with a smile, after my shameful admission and fears, that "there are some things you just can't solder."
Moving on, after the bad episode with the basic engineering, I went back to my experiment. I continued prepping the different things I would need....when I realized that I didn't have any small pipette tips to use! So I pulled out the big plastic bag of sterile yellow tips, collected all the empty containers, and proceeded to fill them up (which can be a very arduous process as it involves putting the tips one by one into the holes in the container while wearing cumbersome latex gloves).
Well, after all that, I finally could continue with my experiment. So I went into the aquarium, peeled a worm from its lifelong tube, put it in a beaker, brought it back to the lab, cleaned it, decapitated it, soaked it in KCL, etc., etc. I followed the normal procedures I had outlined for the Worm Mucus and Magnetism experiments back in mid-July (Sacrificed in the Name of Science) and everything went pretty smooth.
Two neat things that were out of the ordinary though:
- Zach found a stamp that said: "Dimitri Deheyn | Marine Biology Lab"
- Dr. Latz (from the other lab) brought in some Zuchinni Walnut Bread
First, I thought the stamp was pretty cool and neat, especially since I've never seen a paper or anything stamped with it. So we had a fun time stamping different things. I think that Zach even started to stamp every glove in a box of medium-sized latex gloves.
Oh, and about the Zucchini Walnut Bread, which has nothing to do with Marine Biology other than the fact that cooking is a science, it tasted amazing. My dad has always told me about the Zucchini Walnut Bread his Nana used to make, but I always thought that it would be gross since I'm not a fan of that particular squash. But this bread was sweet and had its own funky good flavor that was delicious. Need I say more? Try some Zucchini Walnut Bread today.
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