I started my second set of pea plants and currently I'm waiting for their week cycle to finish so that I can record the result. Today I started on my Algae project again but it came to a stop because i didn't have any pond water to work with because they forgot to get me some so now I'm going to wait until Wednesday so that Matt or josh can get me some pond water. I have made all the solutions for the experiment already so that I can start it right away on wednesday

It's been such a long time....

Since the last time I was able to blog I was finishing up my yogurt project. I have now been involved in a different project which consist of things, in my opinion, more disgusting than rotten milk. My project is to determine whether temperature has an affect on the respiration of different insects. So far I have been able to test this hypothesis out on crickets and worms, in the temperature of cold and room temp. Here is a little bit of my results:





Graph one:  Worm's Oxygen levels at room and cold temp.



Graph two: Cricket CO2 levels at room and cold temp.



What these graphs basically show is that as temperature decreased so did the respiration of these insects. Although I did feel bad for possibly killing off half of the crickets in the Phoenix (not really, don't worry) but I did end up getting some useful results. The bars that are found on the graph are called errors bars and what these bars indicate is that the majority of my data results are found between these lines. What I was taught was that if these bars would have overlapped then my results would've been insignificant. These bars state that there is a significant difference between the two sets of data and that is a good thing. :)

The way that I tested this out is through a device that records the levels of Oxygen and CO2 for 10 minutes creating a graph and giving a slope. I ran this device 10 times on a set of 6 crickets then 6 worms in both a room temperature and cold temperature (on ice). This gave me a set of 40 different slopes, which I averaged to get four individual slopes which then became the data that helped me create four different graphs, similar to the two above. I am very happy to report that I do not have to kill anymore insects, hopefully.  

10/8/12

As I finished running the PCR experiment I have started and I'm almost finished with writing a procedure for it step by step so that one of my colleges will be able to do it in a shorter time while fixing/adding separate steps to acquire the best results possible. Today I will be blowing out eggs to collect the shell for one of the labs and its a little boring and messy but it should pass time very quickly.

During the past couple of weeks I have been working on a PCR for PV92. PV92, a human-specific alu insertion on chromosome 16. The PV92 genetic system has only two alleles indicating the presence (+) or absence (-) of the alu transposable element on each of the paired chromosomes. This results in three PV92 genotypes (++, +-, or --). The + and - alleles can be separated by size using gel electrophoresis. When I first started this kit I got no results from the primers or from my extraction which resulted in a busted so I started all over again and ran the experiment multiple times until I got some result. About 4 weeks later after multiple attempts I finally got some results but I had to change the procedures just a small bit. The procedure asked for a .9% saline wash to remove the cheek cells from your mouth but instead I did the 10ml of saline wash and 10 ml of DI water and mixed them. After that I centrifuged it multiple times until I got an average size pellet at the bottom of the pcr tube. This procedure change helped me with getting results even though they were not the best results one should expect. I'll probably have to run it again so that I acquire optimal results. Also after this PCR experiment I will continue with my previous experiment on euthrophication in a more in depth research based project.  

Summer

Last month I worked on a bunch of things ranging from cleaning tables to preping labs and things of that nature. The most recent project that I worked on was a photosynthetic pigment experiment. In this experiment I had to extract pigments from different vegetables spinach, and purple cabbage. During the next couple of weeks I will be repeating this experiment but with more vegetables to test the different wave lengths that the pigments can absorb. I will also be creating a video like presentation about photosynthetic pigments. 

I'am Back!!! :)

Well haven't done this in a while but I am going tell you what I have been up this summer. I come everyday Monday - Thursday and it is always something new to explore here in the Bioscience's department. Recently I have been working on a yogurt project were I have been using different starters to see the result of the fermented milk. What basically happens when milk is fermented is the bacteria, mainly lactobacillus and streptococcus, (sorry if it is spelled wrong, they are very hard words) eats the carbohydrates (sugars) in the milk creating the end result of an organic acid, which is lactic acid. As all this is happening there are proteins in the milk that go by the name casein. These little guys like to tangle together, which coagulates the milk and solidifies. There are also times where the milk begins to curd, and the rest of the liquid in milk is separated to the top. This yellowish liquid is called whey. Whey and casein are two proteins that are found in milk, when milk coagulates the whey is left behind.Whey is very good to help with digestion.

What I had to do was pretty simple. I had to make yogurt but I had to add different types of starters to see how it affects or doesn't affect the end result. So, I started with, of course, the milk. One I heated it up to the right temperature I let it cool. Once it got to around 110 degrees ferinheight then I can add in my starters. I used yogurt along with 3 other ingredients. Those ingredients were sugar, dried milk and rennet. the different result were pretty interesting if you ask me.


This is my attempt to make chocolate yogurt with chocolate milk instead of white milk. It of course didn't work that well and I ended up with curdled milk instead. Mmmm, sounds goods doesn't it? :P
     

7/16/12

What have I been doing?

My internship here at Phoenix College for this summer so far has been fun and productive. I have done the “behind the scenes” such as washing and sanitizing the materials that were used in lab experiments. Biohazard items are disposed of in a manner of placing the materials in a biohazard bag, wrapped up, and put into an autoclave. After selecting the setting “BIOWASTE”, and as the time to laps, you will take the autoclaved bag out and put into a biohazard bin.

I have also prepared lab experiments for classes before they entered the class. I would look over the list and already be familiar with the room because prior to grabbing the items, I had to go through every practical to make sure the materials were in the room. I first place various trays on stations and set a napkin on top in case of spilling during the experiments. Then, I walk around the classroom collecting the materials and setting those on the trays. Depending on how many items are on the list, it would typically take me 30-60 minutes to make sure everything is filled, correct, and looks appropriate.

I have helped preserve the bodies in the cadaver lab. The technique to handle this is by spraying the body down with a formaldehyde solution in a spray bottle. Then place a few pieces of cloth on the body, spray, wrap in a bigger piece of cloth, spray, then zip up the body bag and move to the next one unwrapping everything and spraying.

My experiment:

I have started an experiment which involves hydrogen peroxide. My main question was, “how effective of an antiseptic is hydrogen peroxide?” and I also had a sub-question which was, “where does the foaming come from?” I will be exploring these questions and find the answers to them.

 I answered some preliminary questions before I started such as, how does hydrogen peroxide work? This is answered simply by stating, when it is applied to a surface, it reacts quickly and then breaks down into water hydrogen. At the same time free oxygen radicals are released; these create oxidation, a chemical process in which oxygen combines with another substance to break down or change the function of the molecules. Through oxidation, the bacterium decomposes, rendering it harmless.

There was also the question of, why does hydrogen peroxide foam? When catalase comes in contact with hydrogen peroxide, it turns H₂O₂ into H₂O+ O₂. Catalase does this extremely efficiently-up to 200,000 reactions per second. The bubbles you see in the foam are pure oxygen bubbles being created by the catalase. Hydrogen peroxide doesn’t foam in the bottle or on your skin because there is no catalase to help the reason to occur. (How stuff works, 2012)

Is it catalase positive or negative? When performing an experiment, you look for a reaction indicating catalase positive. If so, it is considered Staphylococci and Micrococci. There is also “Listeria, Corynebacterium diphtheria, Burkholderia cepacia, Nocardia, the family of Enterobacteriaceae, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Aspergillus and Cryptococcus.

After exploring the back history of it, I conducted a procedure in which I included hydrogen peroxide, sterile loops, and TSA plates, samples of dirt, soil, concrete, and blood. I would seclude a section of dirt and squirt about 1TBS of hydrogen peroxide and record observations. Then, I would do the same for soil, concrete, and blood. My findings were that all of them foamed although the soil didn’t foam instantaneously. When taking a sample with the sterile loop onto a TSA plate and incubating for 24 hours at 37°C, I found multiple colonies which I then took a sample of each colony with a sterile loop and transferred to a TSB tube. After letting it settle for 24 hours in a refrigerator, I took a sterile loop and took a sample from that and spread onto a clean TSA plate. We put that into the incubator and checked the next day.

The dirt, soil, blood, and concrete grew fairly well. What I found was all the dirt colonies and soil colonies foamed. 1 of the 3 colonies for concrete did not foam.

Dirt Bacteria Isolated	Catalase (+,-)
Colony 1	Negative
Colony 2	Positive
Colony 3	Negative
Colony 4	Negative

Soil Bacteria Isolated	Catalase (+,-)
Colony 1	Positive
Colony 2	Positive
Colony 3	Negative

Concrete Bacteria Isolated	Catalase (+,-)
Colony 1	Negative
Colony 2	Negative
Colony 3	Positive

Blood Bacteria Isolated	Catalase (+,-)
Colony 1	Positive

My conclusion is that the foaming comes from the blood and cells which contains an enzyme called catalase. Since a cut or scrape contains both blood and damaged cells, there is lots of catalase floating around.