So Sunday wasn't too terribly exciting. I got up at my normal sleep in time and sat around for a while. At 3:30, B, AH and I walked to the gym. They went to play tennis, but I decided that I'd rather just go do my workout. So I ran a mile and a half. One mile forwards, half a mile backwards and decided that I was done with my cardio. hahah. I really should probably be adding more time to my cardio, but oh well. Then I went and got on the biking machine, turned the tv on to HGTV and biked for nearly 40 minutes. I suppose the machines are accurate enough, but I don't know if I really biked 11 miles or not. I wish the bike did cardio work, but it is really only legs, which means I can ride for longer, but I'm not working out as hard as I would like. After the gym, we came back to mid-mass and cleaned up because R's sister L was taking us out to dinner. We went to Salt Hill Pub in Lebanon, NH. I had yet another veggie burger, but it was good enough. I had the best black and white cheesecake for dessert. It was so delicious. I'd thought about having the Guinness float, but decided that I really wasn't *that* brave. hahah. We got back around 9ish, and I decided to do nothing for the rest of the day. It was kind of wonderful, except that I didn't fall asleep real well when I went to bed. But N was still home for the weekend, so at least she wasn't keeping me up.
Monday morning and N *still* wasn't back from her birthday weekend. I got up and headed into work. Monday was a really great day of work. We had lab meeting at 10 again. Someone had brought in muffins for the meeting, which was great. I really liked this lab meeting as compared to the last one. We went around the table and everyone said what they had been working on thesse past few weeks and what their plans for the next week were and everyone gave suggestions and it was really interesting. I gave my short spiel. I've been absorbing everything and trying to keep my mind from exploading from all the imputs. I wrote an abstract and this week I have to make a poster. Then BC went into a little bit of detail about what actual work I'm doing. haha. She sort of explained the suppressor screen and such before moving on to the next person. After the meeting was lunch and after lunch I came back and started some real work. My first mutagenesis plates were ready, so I got to work with them for a bit. I'd seeded about 200 small plates on Friday, so away I went picking worms. One worm to a plate. 186 worms total. It took forever. Absolutely forever. Half of the worms went back in the 20 degree incubator and half went into the 15 degree incubator. This took me several hours, so I checked my e-mail and saw that BC had e-mailed me back a new abstract.
"Hi Beth,
You did a great job on your first ever abstract!!!! You definitely got the overall idea right. To get this idea across a bit better, I did some rearranging and added a few things like a description of the ces-1(gf)phenotype. See what you think.
B."
Oh my word. I was beyond pumped. I'd really spent most of the weekend thinking about what kind of criticisms I would get....and I suppose I didn't get any. She really did change my abstract around and add some stuff, but there are definitely traces of what I'd written originally. *grin* I was so pleased. So, if you'd like a nice and short summary about what I'm doing and why it's important, read here:
The nematode C. elegans has proven to be a good model for studying programmed cell death or apoptosis, a process that is important for development and cellular homeostasis in all multi-cellular organisms, including humans. Of the 131 cells that undergo programmed cell death during C. elegans development, the cells of interest arise from the neurosecretory motoneuron (NSM) neuroblast. Due to the activity of the gene ces-1, which encodes a zinc finger-containing transcription factor, the NSM neuroblast divides asymmetrically and gives rise to a large cell, the NSM, which develops into a neuron, and a small cell, the NSM sister cell, which undergoes apoptosis. How ces-1 acts in asymmetric cell division is currently unknown. To identify targets of ces-1 function, I will perform a ces-1(n703gf) suppressor screen using a reporter that tags the NSMs and ‘undead’ NSM sister cells with green fluorescence protein (GFP). Specifically, in animals that carry the ces-1 gain-of-function mutation n703gf, the NSM neuroblast divides symmetrically to give rise to two daughter cells of similar sizes both of which survive. Therefore, rather than one GFP-positive cell per side of the animal, two GFP-positive cells, the NSM and undead NSM sister cell, can be detected. As some mutations are temperature sensitive, mutagenized ces-1(n703gf) ‘P0’ animals will be incubated at a variety of temperatures. Their F2 generation will be screened for animals in which only one GFP-positive cell per side is detected. Potential suppressors will be identified, characterized and the penetrance of their phenotypes determined. The mammalian homologue of C. elegans ces-1 has previously been implicated in apoptosis regulation as well. In addition, ces-1-like genes have recently been shown to function in stem cells, which, like the NSM neuroblast of C. elegans, divide asymmetrically. Homologues of ces-1 targets identified in C. elegans may therefore function in apoptosis regulation and stem cells in mammals as well.
So there you have it. My first ever piece of real honest-to-goodness scientific writing. With a little help, of course...but still. A true masterpiece, in my "unbiased" opinion. *giggle*
Monday was also GRE class again. It went much better than the last time. Obviously N is a verbal kind of girl. She only made a mistake a couple of times. I got to tell her that BEVY is to QUAIL as STAND is to TREE. But I only got that one after she told us that a bevy is a group of quail. As if anyone would really know that one! But apparently no one but me knew that a stand is a group of trees. I think there was another one of these analogies or maybe an antonym where I was the only one who knew the answer and it was really funny because I got to make the comment "that's what a midwest education can get you" because it had something to do with farming or something else rural. It cracked me up.
Tuesday was a good day as well. I spent too much time in front of the scope, but I enjoyed it. I'd only enjoy it more if using the scope were more ergonomical. I hate stretching to see down the scope. So I unpicked all 186 worms from the day before. This just means that I took the F1 worms off all of the plates and then I flamed them. It's a good thing I'm not too squeamish about killing worms. Now if these were mice on the other hand and they wanted me to gas them, I'm not so sure I could do that. But I put the plates back in the incubator so the F2 generation could develop. The F1 worms had layed a bunch of eggs overnight, which is good. Then I clonally picked 196 more worms from the 15 degree plates to small plates. I incubated 96 of the plates at 20 degrees and incubated 100 plates at 15 degrees.
Last night we didn't have journal club because AB is in the Dominican Republic. I'm super jealous. N's friends Anna, Erika and Beth came up to visit. We went to dinner at Molly's and I had the greatest Tomato Basil Pasta. It was super good and the tomatoes were all fresh tomatoes and I loved it. Then we took a tour of Remsen and Vail. N and I both got to show off our labs and I enjoyed that a lot. I think I like being knowledgable. :) We went out for ice cream at Ice Cream Fore U. I love this place. I've been several times because the ice cream is pretty inexpensive. A small hard serve ice cream is $2.25 and it's HUGE. It's just too much ice cream for me. I really should order the baby size next time I go. That's only $1.50 and is really the perfect amount of ice cream. Then they headed back to Keene and I went to bed. haha. I'm such a party pooper. That's okay though. Sleep is well worth it.
Today has been a good day so far. I had a little bit of trouble waking up this morning, so it's a good thing B didn't want to go running. I stumbled into the lab at 9 and immediately started unpicking the worms from yesterday. That took most of the morning, but I still had some time before lunch so I seeded about 300 small plates. I'm actually a little worried that I've managed to give myself an E. coli infection because I've not been feeling so great lately, but I haven't seen the really diagnostic symptom. Let's hope that it never shows and that I'm just tired and haven't been eating well enough. *crosses fingers*.
My Amazon package came in today. I've got 3 new books. 1 is the last textbook for my philosophy class: On The Beach by Nevil Shute. It was pretty hard to get a copy of this book....I had to buy the hardback edition and I think there was only one left after I bought my copy. I hope everyone else in my class has already ordered their copy or they might not get one. I also bought Good Omens which is my favorite book. I love Neil Gaiman, of course. Stardust is one of my absolute favorites too. This book was written with Terry Pratchett. While I've never read anything he's written before, Good Omens is an amazing read. The third and final book I ordered is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. J recommended this one to me. I'd started reading his copy twice, but I never made it past the first 100 pages. So I thought I'd order it and then maybe pass it along when I finish, if I don't absolutely love it. It's really funny so far, but a little inappropriate. I think it's sort of funny that the two books I ordered "just because" are funny books about Christianity. Good Omens is about the apocalypse and the antichrist. It's really really funny.
Well, my lunch break is officially over five minutes ago, so I'm gonna go back to work. I've got to see if I can borrow 100 small plates from someone since mine aren't dry yet and then I have to go pick 100 more worms. *sigh* It's never-ending and I still suck at it. Oh well.
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