It’s crunch time! We have less than three weeks before our poster presentations, which means we don’t have a lot more time left to collect data. Kostantina and I realized that we’ve probably bit off more than we can chew. We faced some challenges separating urchin and starfish blastomeres, so we’ve decided to try to simplify our projects a bit by focusing our efforts on sand dollars. We’ve had consistent results with the sand dollar blastomere separations and we’ve been documenting the development of whole, half-, and quarter-sized sand dollars throughout the summer. This week, we fixed some specimens to prepare them for antibody staining, and we also started using the high-speed camera to record feeding in sand dollar larvae. For the high-speed video, we’ve been using a particularly large and jumpy strain of Rhodomonas to see how well whole and partial larvae are able to capture and retain escape-prone prey. Five day old sand dollar larvae! Last weekend, we ventured up to Newport to tour the Hatfield Marine Science Center and visit the Newport Aquarium. The 2.5 hour drive up north along the coast was scenic and beautiful. It was really interesting to see Hatfield’s campus and to meet some of the REU’s and PI’s from their program. On Tuesday night, a few of us attended one of the concerts of the Oregon Coast Music Festival. I’m a huge music nerd, so it was so amazing to get to attend a concert while here. They performed one of my all-time favorite pieces, and the acoustics in the high school auditorium were actually pretty incredible. Also on Tuesday, we had a professional development session where we got some great advice from Richard, Svetlana, and OIMB grad students about applying to grad school. That was probably my favorite professional development session yet, and I feel really grateful for all of the valuable advice I’ve received this summer about pursuing a career in marine biology. Some of the grad students mentioned that when you do research your work ends up being on your mind almost all of the time. I’m definitely feeling that a bit right now… Everywhere I go, I’m thinking of my little larvae and about what other experiments I could possibly do. There are so many questions to explore and I am always wishing there was more time – I guess that’s what grad school is for!
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AuthorHello! My name is Ana and I am a rising senior studying biology and music at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. This summer, I am working under the mentorship of George von Dassow. I am looking forward to seeing where my research takes me and to becoming a part of the OIMB community! Archives
August 2018
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