This weekend was super relaxing and productive! Me and a few REU's went out to get sushi and explore the Coos Bay food scene- overall everyone agreed that it definitely hit the spot. We also have gotten in the pattern of watching movies while splitting a pre-made charcuterie board from Fred Meyers for a whopping $7.99. Although it doesn't sound too glamorous, it's one of my favorite activities to do after a long day of ultramicrotomy. We also recently got more pictures from the RV Pluteus trip- those and more images from this weekend below! This week in the lab has been chaotic to say the least. Five new OIMB undergrads have joined our lab to help the graduate students with their respective projects, so needless to say it's been a bit busier than previous weeks. After looking at my cuttings on the ultramicrotome and learning that the glass knives I was using were all previously used and many years old, we figured it would be time to get new ones. Thanks to people in Eugene, glass knives are being shipped to us as we speak. I'm excited to get them and to start cutting blocks of resin again while making more progress on my poster. Having no knives this week has been a bit of a setback since I've lost 5 days of ultramicrotome work, but I'm optimistic they will get here soon and I can get into the groove of slicing my specimen early next week. The rest of this week was spent accompanying Ytxzae on the SEM and taking images of the Ifremeria nautilei larva at all stages of development. Now that we've separated to focus on our own projects, it was nice to see what he has been working on while I've been in the ultramicrotomy room.
Although the program directors warned us this program would fly by, this past week really felt like the blink of an eye. It's hard to believe we only have 4 weeks left here, and only 3 weeks left with the UO students. Even though it feels like I just got here, I can't imagine how weird it will be to say goodbye to the campus and the friends I've made here. Anyway, this weekend is going to be SO fun. Me and two other REU's decided to make the spontaneous trip to San Francisco and San Jose where Cat lives. It's her mom's birthday this weekend, so lots of celebration in store. I've never been to California, so I'm looking forward to seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, soaking up the much needed sun, and seeing if In-n-Out Burger really lives up to the hype. See you next week!
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This past weekend was so much fun! The REUs went out on the RV Pluteus and dredged up some very cool inverts! Even though a few of us got seasick (me included), I think the trip was worth it. I also celebrated my 21st birthday by spending the morning at the beach and taking an afternoon trip into downtown Coos bay to get some birthday free-bees from Starbucks and Dutch Bros. Later in the day I ate some delicious food at Seven Devils Alehouse for dinner. The highlight of my birthday was definitely when my college roommate, Maggie, tracked my location, found and called the restaurant I was eating at (all the way from Massachusetts!) and asked to cover drinks and dessert! Needless to say, it was such a special birthday and I most definitely felt the love all the way from the east coast. After 4 weeks, I feel like I'm getting into my own groove! Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I focused on cutting, dehydrating, and embedding 10 more samples in Spurrs resin. By doing this resin "mise en place" I will be able to focus on slicing, staining, and imaging slides the rest of the summer! I had a big win earlier in the week regarding a methods problem we were facing with the ultramicrotome: getting the sliced resin to stick to our slides. We found that placing the sliced resin on a hot plate for 15 minutes to fully dry the samples, letting the slide rest at room temp for 40 seconds, placing the stain on the slide, and rinsing it under water created usable sections! Although it was a temperamental methods process to figure out, I'm glad I wont be seeing sliced resin sections pop off the slide and go down the drain any longer. Wednesday afternoon I sliced my very first sample of Ifremeria. With how much work went into collecting the snails, shipping them to OIMB, fixing them in chemicals, and resin embedding, I was quite nervous to start slicing. Although I was scared, the slices looked great! As of now, I am having trouble with the slices folding and creating a "3D-like" effect on the slides. To properly view slides, the sections need to be flat so every part of the cutting is on the same plane and the microscope can focus the entire cutting, not just bits and pieces. Hopefully I can fix this issue with some method testing. This weekend seems like it will be chill and quiet as there isn't a REU trip planned. Perhaps I will get ahead on some presentation making, go into downtown Coos bay to get some good eats, and work on social media content for Dags Hockey, my Dads hockey training business. See you next week!
This past weekend was great! A few REU students and I ventured into downtown Coos Bay and got much-needed groceries and sweet treats from Fred Meyers. While downtown, I got to try Dutch Bros, a west-coast coffee chain that I've been dying to try since flying out. Seeing as though Dutch Bros is drive-through only (and we did not have a car), we quite literally stood between cars to wait in line. As a coffee lover and barista- I give it a 10/10. On Monday, Lisa, Debby, and the rest of the OIMB dining hall staff made the most beautiful spread of food to celebrate the 4th. Thanks to Maya and her grilling expertise, I tried my first oyster! When you smother them in lemon and garlic butter sauce, it's hard not to like them. A few of us went down to the OIMB beach after the picnic to lay in the sun, talk on the jetty, and watch Catalina bravely swim in the coldest water ever. Although proposal drafts were due this week, we made sure to have some fun in between writing and peer-reviewing. Earlier this week in the lab we focused on our individual projects meaning I got more familiar with the ultramicrotome. To start, I successfully attached a water boat to the glass knife using blue Sally Hansen nail polish (which is a lot more precarious than it sounds) and leveled the knife in the knife holder. I practiced making slices on the ultramicrotome with a resin block and -to my relief- they turned out great! The next steps for method trouble-shooting are to stain the samples and permanently enclose the cuttings under coverslips using permount. Once we figure out how to do those steps successfully, I can start going through the actual samples I need to image. Later in the week, I focused on exposing the snail gonad samples to increasing concentrations of Spurrs resin. To do so, I started by cutting individual gonad tissue samples belonging to species of Ifremeria, A. strummeri, A. boucheti, and A. kojimai in half. I cut the tissue in half so we had two pieces of gonad to work with in case our resin test went south. I then put the cut pieces through a dehydration series of increasing ethanol concentrations (95%, 100%, 100%) to fully get rid of any water present. After that, I mixed up the Spurrs resin (which requires four different liquid chemicals) and diluted three batches (1:2, 1:1, 3:1 Spurrs to ethanol) to place the tissues through an infiltration series. Each of these steps takes anywhere from 3 to 12 hours, so in total it's a 2-day process. This Saturday the REU crew is going out on OIMB's boat, the RV Pluteus, and dredging up invertebrates that live on the bottom of the sea floor. I'm excited to get my hands dirty and do some field work! Excitingly enough, my birthday is Sunday! I'm not too sure what I'll do yet, but I'm seeing some pretty promising weather so I'll likely hang out on the beach, read, and celebrate. See you next week!
Camping was amazing! We stayed at a campsite perfectly situated between the forest, beach, and beautiful hiking spots. We completed a 4-mile hike around the coast of Cape Arago, saw a whale in the distance, and ate amazing sandwiches while watching the seals duke it out on the rocks below. Afterwards, we enjoyed a hot and sunny beach day filled with tide pooling, rock climbing, and spike ball. Pictures below! This week in the lab, we learned how to utilize the ultramicrotome, which is basically a teeny-tiny deli meat slicer. Lauren Rice (Young lab PhD candidate) gave us a step-by-step on how to prepare the knife, use the intricate levers, and shave the resin block into a perfect square to make the slicing more precise. The machine we work with cuts at 300 nanometers (a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; imagine 333 times thinner than that!). Next, we looked at pictures of the hydrothermal vents our samples were collected from. In comparison to the Ifremeria, it was easier to see that the Alviniconcha have gold tips at the end of their shell, are more mustard-colored, and are extra furry-looking. Later in the week, we worked on the SEM with Avery (Young lab Masters candidate) and started transferring our first round of dehydrated snail shell bits onto stubs. To do this, we attached special tape onto the stubs to make the surface sticky. Then, we carefully attached the specimen to the stub. We made one stub for 4 species of snails: A. kojimai, A. boucheti, A. strummeri, and Ifremeria. After all the spines were attached to stubs, we brought the samples to the sputter coater. Here, a machine coats the sample in an atom-thick layer of gold using argon gas. My favorite part about this week was the spontaneous trip Ytxzae and I took to Newport. Along with our mentor, Craig Young, we travelled two hours north to pick up a part for OIMB's recently broken ROV. We saw breathtaking beaches during the journey and talked about Oregon history, our hometowns, favorite movies, and most importantly - the best types of cheese. Also, we went tide pooling and had the chance to look at remarkable creatures hiding along the coast. Lastly, my favorite activity this week was taking a sunset walk to decompress after a long day of ultramicrotome and SEM processing. We took a stroll on OIMB Beach and sat on the jetty, watching the ships roll in as the sun slowly disappeared behind the clouds. I made a little video below! Ignore the "California" lyric - the song is just too good not to use. See you next week! |
AuthorHello! My name is Flynn Gorman and I am working in the Young Lab and studying the embryology of the gastropods Ifremeria nautilei and Alviniconcha this summer. I am from New Jersey and I am pursuing a B.S. in Biology at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. I also work at a coffee shop on campus and act as the PR Director for my acapella group. Archives
August 2022
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