Gettin' a tattoo

I've been wanting for a long time to get a tattoo of some pretty algae.  Especially now that I've passed comps and I'm well on my way to getting the dissertation done.  Except I don't know what to get!  I need help from all of you out there in internet land. I've got a few in mind that I want. (I really wish I could make this a grid, so I'm sorry for the long post)

Gomphonema acuminatum 

Zygnema sp.

Closterium sp.

Merismopdiea sp.

Epithemia sp.

Spirogyra sp.

Getting a tattoo like this is a lot like commissioning a work of art.  You meet with the artist, discuss the generalities of it, let the artist put his own spin on it, approve his rendition and then get it done.  I've already got the artist picked out, he's a very nice young man down in the East Village on St. Marks Place.  I'll post him and the finished work later on.  But he's very good at "natural" tattoos.  He did a lovely soaring raven for the Hubster.

So since this is a work of art, I am comfortable taking certain liberties.  I obviously want the algal taxa to be as morphologically correct as possible.  But I'm ok with proportions being off.  For example, the diatoms posted here are obviously photographed at >1000x and the greens are at <400x.  If I had everything proportional, the artist wouldn't be able to capture any of the detail of the diatoms respective to the filaments.

And obviously there's a lot more algae that I could choose (I'm still debating whether or not to include Fragilaria crotonensis or Asterionella sp.).  But I want to know your suggestions too!

Please post in the comments which species you would like to see in a tattoo with a link to a picture that you think would be a good model for the tattoo artist.  Thanks!!  Can't wait to see what the internet throws at me!

Life Imitates Art/Art Imitates Life

Lately, I've been working on a short little grad student grant proposal.  Only 500 words, and most people who apply get something.  And even though $200 isn't a lot, it's a win I can put on the 'ol CV. But it's due right after I finish up my upcoming field sampling, which means I won't have the time or energy to work on it last minute (like I usually do).  Hence working on it now.

So I've been working on this thing for the last 2 weeks.  I'd previously done 2 drafts (I think I mentioned this already) and eventually ditched them and started from scratch on a 3rd.  I gave that draft to my advisor for comments and got it back with the usual drippings of red ink/track changes.

But I'm looking at it and I wondered, "how many of the words here are mine and how many are his?" In the main body of the proposal, I have 113 words....he wrote 138.  It's more his than mine.  I understand that this is supposed to be teaching me how to write through example, but knowing that it's more than half his is very depressing.

It also reminded me of the latest couple of PhD Comics. If you're in grad school/academia and you're not reading this comic you are missing out!

Thankfully my advisor isn't mean like Prof. Smith.  Though maybe if he was a bit meaner, I'd get better faster.  Oh well, I'll take a nice advisor!

I think it's gonna be ok!!

Well, even though you all didn't hear from me over the weekend, it was very productive, I assure you.

On Saturday, the Hubster and a new grad student and I traveled up north to see if my stream sites are still there.  I was all prepared to be making horrible detours.  I had my DeLorme map book and my GPS (a REAL GPS, not some TomTom bullshit).  I was starting to get nervous as we got closer, all of the rivers and streams we passed as we headed for the Catskills were still "raging rivers of chocolate milk". I was sure that my sites would be little more than muddy gouges in the landscape having had their substrates completely washed away.

This is what I thought I was going to be encountering.  Saturday was full of "no one else churns their chocolate by river" jokes.

But we only had one major detour to make, and it actually put us closer to one of the sites as if we had stayed on the main road.  I brought my camera to document the carnage that I thought had been wrought on my sites...but I didn't take a single picture because the worst I could see was a little bit of bank under cutting.  Not enough to really get worked up over.  Granted I only went to the sites that I hadn't heard from the farmers via email, so maybe some of those streams will be worse than I was lead to believe.  All in all, a good day!

Then Sunday, I got out of the house and headed to a nice Manhattan Starbucks and managed to hammer out a grant application I've been meaning to work on.  I started working on this thing like 2 weeks ago.  I even wrote 2 drafts, but I didn't really like them.  Yesterday I started from scratch and I like what I came up with this time a lot better.  Just a bit more polishing tonight and I'll send it off to my advisor for Death by Red Pen (more likely "track changes").  I really felt the need to get a move on it because it's due in 2 weeks and I just realized that one of those weeks is going to be spent in the field.  And I won't feel like writing a grant between sample days.

How was y'alls' weekend?

ATP Mutha F*cka!!

Just had to share this amazing image that a friend shared with me.  Have you all noticed I have amazing friends who share awesomeness with me?

Click to make bigger to read the awesomeness!

Humans need plants (this includes algae!)

I just read a NYTimes article sent to me by a friend.  Wow, is it ever amazing!

I'll let you read it for all the details and specifics, but basically a scientist in England locked himself in an airtight box with plants as his only source of oxygen for 48 hours....and survived!

The initial oxygen level of the environment was set at about 12% to simulate high-altitude conditions and they chose some high O2 producing plants to see if they could bring it up to 21% (normal atmospheric ranges, I think).  During this time, the light and humidity was kept at a level intended to optimize photosynthesis (O2 production).

During the first day, the scientist was walking and talking to press, conducting experiments and such.  However, this was apparently too much exertion and he ended up producing more CO2 than the plants could handle.  And it wasn't just that the plants couldn't turn over the CO2 to O2 fast enough....it was that the concentrations of CO2 were making the plants less efficient at converting CO2 to O2.

The scientist survived the ordeal just fine, he was never in too much danger.  And he successfully made a dramatic demonstration that human life and plant life are very intertwined!

However, I think the lessons from this experiment go beyond just showing that humans need plants for us to breathe.  I think there are a lot of potential climate change lessons that can be observed from this. 

For starters, the plants were kept at an optimal temperature, humidity, and light levels.  This optimal looks like it was very warm, judging by the tropical looks of the plants there.  I've heard climate change deniers say that even if the world is warming up, that's ok because plants like it warm!  They'll just photosynthesize more which makes more O2 and sucks up more CO2. No problem!

But, when we look at what happened to these plants in this optimal environment when they had more CO2 than they could process, they actually slowed down! So, we can extrapolate out to a real-world scenario, where the world has gotten warmer which should ramp up O2 production, but due to extreme human activities, we are putting more CO2 in the atmosphere than the plants can process.  The earth is warming, plus more CO2 which traps more heat, which reduces the overall efficiency of O2 production by plants = disaster! There have been many studies that have shown this decrease in photosynthetic efficiency at high CO2 concentrations.  But here we see it actually affecting a person.

So bravo, Dr. English Scientist!! Not only a dramatic demonstration on how we are dependent on plants, but also a dramatic example of how our actions can harm those organisms on which we depend for life!

I didn't go to work today

Just couldn't do it.  Learning how to handle that beast of a nutrient analyzer drained it all out of me.  I needed a day to recoup and process the information.  Plus, I thought I could maybe get some writing done if I didn't go in.  You know, quick trip to the store, run an errand or two, then back to campus to sit with some coffee and write.  Nope! Direct line from the store to my bed for a nap.  Turns out the Hubster ditched his last class today too.  So we're both slackers.

In the meantime, here is the Alga of the Week from AlgaeBase.org

Phymatolithon calcareum - Another marine alga...c'mon AlgaeBase, freshwater algae are so much cooler!

And just as a reminder, even though it's stated in the info along the side of the blog, all images are found through google image search and if you right click on the image you can find the original picture info.

Newcommers, part II

Grr....stupid blogging program was being difficult after I inserted those pictures, and wouldn't let me type anything more.  So, where was I...?

Ah yes, nutrient analyzer.  We use an Astoria AQ2 if anyone's interested... I got to lab a little late today, almost 11am instead of my usual 9am.  I've been working on making solutions ever since (currently 2:15pm). I haven't even turned the damn thing on yet. 

This is the joy of analyzers.

One of the things that is making this process take so long is that you are constantly having to hunt around for the glassware you need and then once you find it, you have to spend the time to wash and sterilize it before you can use it for what you needed.  Our lab tech is actually really irritated by this, which caused him to go as far as to buy bottles that were to have a dedicated purpose for the standards needed to run the various tests.  Currently we have a whole fridge full of these specially dedicated bottle that are full of old standards and old reagents.  Le sigh....that's what happens when you take a vacation to get married and then come back from your honeymoon to a hurricane and a week of field work.  No more vacations for him!

This is my life today.  Tomorrow will hopefully be a bit more productive!  Tune in tomorrow for the next part of our exciting story: Getting NH4+ concentrations!!!

Welcome Newcommers!

So...I'm noticing a spike in my "page view" numbers which is due (I hope!) to the lovely, glorious, and fabulous Dr. Isis giving me a plug.  THANKS!!!!

 If you are new here, welcome. Take a look around, and most importantly, LEAVE A COMMENT!  I can't make the blog better without knowing what sucks on it.  In addition to commenting on posts themselves, or material I have linked here, please let me know what sorts of topics I should be devoting more time to.  And with that, he's today's thing to bitch about!

I'm learning how to use our lab's nutrient analyzer today.  Not every aquatic lab is lucky enough to have one of these wonderful gizmos, and every lab that I know that does have one knows it is damn blessed.  So much of aquatic ecology research depends on being able to do nutrient (N, P, S, K, etc...) analysis that I don't know how anyone functions without one.  However, I also don't know of a single lab in possession of a nutrient analyzer that doesn't have a library of stressful horror stories about trying to use it.  The lab where I did my MS is richly steeped in nutrient analyzer horror stories.  I'd tell you about it, but I'd have to kill you if I did.....true story.

Anyhoo, so I'm learning ours today.  You can see it below.  This is a pretty standard sort of set up.

p.s. the rest of the post continues here... 

Computer control center.  Nice monitor stand, right?

 

Main sampler.  Reaction coils and tube on the left, sample rack on the right.  All robotic arms.  It's nifty!

Missed Oportunity

Not by me...by a certain organization that put out a call for grants and then turned me down.

I submitted a letter of intent where I added a climate change component to my current research.  In case you all forgot, I'm currently at the start of a 3 year sampling period looking at the effect of the duration of agricultural BMP implementation on stream periphyton community composition and nutritional composition.  It was actually nice fit to add a climate component to it (and I may still look at it that way...hell, I'm still collecting all that data, may as well, right?)

But they turned me down, said it wasn't their thing.  Which it may be.  And then I got the most recent issue of the Journal of Phycology with this little gem! It always makes me feel super smart and validated to see that my thinking was on the right track.

The article is one of only a few that looks at how increasing water temps (the kind of which could be caused by global climate change) will decrease the essential fatty acid compounds found in a specific alga. While they only look at one species, it's enough to make it worth while to look at whole communities.  Which I'm going to be doing! :-D (I win!)

So yeah, look forward to that article in 4-5 years... (facepalm!)

Here's some Scenedesmus for ya!

Procrastinating Lab Work

I don't know why I'm so nervous about this.  I've done it before....just always with other, more trained people around me... I am working up the courage to get our GC started so that I can run what fatty acid samples I already have prepared since no one can help me with anything else until next week.  It's really not hard to do; you turn on all the gases and chiller, start the program, enter all the samples, press start, come back the next day to review your data.  Easy!

So why am I scared?

But this is an excuse for me to share something I found on the internet! It's the website www.algaebase.org.  There are only a couple of website that you can use as an online reference for lots of algal taxa.  It can help with IDing species, lots of good examples to look at when you're trying to differentiate between species of Navicula (pain in the ass, am I right?)

So, may I present....Algae Base's "Alga of the Week"! Durvillaea potatorum otherwise known as bull kelp.

See? Algae isn't just that green stuff that you slip on in streams, or that makes a lake icky to swim in.  It can be big and macroscopic too.  And also edible!!  That seaweed that holds your sushi together? Or that Trader Joe's makes into those delicious, addictive snacks?  That's Porphyra spp. (e.g. abbottiae)

So yeah, algae.  It's not something to just ignore!

Fall 2011 Massive To-Do List

Well, it's that time of the semester when there's no denying that school is back in session.  Even though I am not taking any classes and I'm relieved of teaching duties for this semester, it still feels different than the summer.  But it's usually around this time that it hits me that I've got a shit-ton to do and I start to freak out about how to do it all.  So here is the first crack at all that:

1. Re-work my manuscript that got rejected and submit somewhere else
2. Write a SX grant
3. Re-do my EPA STAR for 2012, I've got a good feeling this time
4. Work on the smattering of other funding applications
5. Work on writing up my summer 2010 study for publication (oh yeah, and run the rest of the samples that go along with it...)

So far, the last 3 days have consisted with just trying to get a handle on all the labware washing that couldn't be done without power and water due to Irene and Lee.  I finally got some algal P samples ready to go and some diatoms washed, but that's about it.  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, water chem and fatty acids will also get done.  I'm hopeful :-)

Well Bollocks...

I got my first journal rejection today. 

I always knew there would be rejections, I just hoped it wasn't my first article.  But after 2 weeks of research stagnation due to hurricanes and tropical storms, I'm taking it pretty hard.  So, that's why I'm here on campus, stuffing my face with unhealthy freshman food and sugary, creamy coffee.  When I'm in a bad mood, I eat lots of bad-for-you stuff.  Sure I'm going to go run 3 miles tomorrow which will help mitigate the damage, but it doesn't improve my mood any.

Grad school can make you pretty manic depressive.  One minute you're burning through the to-do list, being productive, getting the data, writing the funding applications. And then shit like this happens and it's like you haven't done anything.

Have no fear, mystery readers!  The funk will pass. I feel a little better already. Besides, it's not like the reviewers said it was shit, they just had many questions.  Too many apparently

And in case I've made you at all sad because of my pitiful plight, here's some cute kitties: