You guys are in for a sad blog this week. Please have tissues ready to go. Thank you. Poster presentations were this week. Everything we had worked endlessly over these entire nine weeks led up to this moment. I honestly thought that my poster was going to be the end of me, with all of the formatting and I broke my laptop right before it was due, but I made it through. And the end result is this beautiful baby! I can honestly say that I am so proud of myself and I feel like research is much less intimidating than it was initially. These past weeks have taught me that even though things you planned do not work entirely, you just have to pick yourself up and try another way. Steven and I got into the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation Rising TIDES program! So we will be seeing each other and Julie in Alabama, this upcoming November. Me and Steven will be presenting a joint poster combining both of our research projects. I am super excited that we get to travel and present our research together. I’m also super stoked about going to a conference for the first time, I don’t even know what to expect! The last week, we went to all of our classic spots, such as the local Coos Bay Walmart, Bastendorff, and of course OIMB beach. I got go surfing with Phillip and he gave all of the great surfing tips. For example, bring a jug of hot water to pour over your head after you’re done, it honestly one of the most comforting things I’ve ever felt. It feels like a warm egg is being cracked over your head.
Thanks for reading my blog, hope you all enjoyed them. Bye for now!
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What did I do this week? I can't remember. They say science is all about trial and error. It’s more like error, error, error, error and maybe a few trials that succeed. Let’s just say this week has given me a newfound respect for people who study ocean acidification.
I began behavior trials this week, and they didn't go how I thought it would. Which was both good and tiresome thing. I originally planned on exposing crabs to two different pH targets which were 7.4 and 7.8 for at least five days. I was going to use these crabs in my behavior trials, which was testing how long the crabs took to reach a piece of food that was placed upstream from them, and comparing the two different pH treatments. The crabs were unable to reach the food at all. It was interesting to see that most of them were unable to find the food. I decided to use the crabs that have not been pre-conditioned and were being kept in the sea table in our lab at an ambient pH. I did a short exposure to the different pH treatments just by flowing 7.4 or 7.8 water through the behavior arena. There was an average of 81 seconds take to reach the food by the 7.8 crabs and and average of 131 seconds taken by the 7.4 crabs to reach the food. So it is cool to see that there may be some difference in their behavior by exposing them to a different pH in such a short amount of time. But on a lighter side. The REU's are winding down our last weeks together and taking advantage of all the time we have left. This past weekend, in between poster parties we had one of our last bonfires down at OIMB beach. I watched someone roast a starburst? It gets crispy on the outside after it cools, but stays gooey on the inside. Some do recommend, but please proceed with caution. I think my favorite part of my weekend though, was getting a chance to have dinner with Aaron and his family. We had some amazing chicken and bratwursts, all grilled by the legend himself. We just talked about all the cool research opportunities and life itself. He also bought us Dairy Queen on the way back to OIMB. OH MY GOD THIS HAS BEEN A CRAZY WEEK.
So our contraption has been a slight set back, but we are on the come up! Do not worry folks. If there is one thing I have learned about research and science, nothing works as you thought it would and you will spend three times as much you thought you would spend on doing something. Me, Steven and Erica have been moved into the fancy crab lab, that is able to control the pH pretty darn well. On Friday we went to this remote island that has a land bridge only when the tide is extremely low. We saw so many new animals that we haven’t seen when we usually go to South Cove. There was everything from Sea Stars to all different types of worms! Then we finished off week 7 with a bonfire. I can’t believe I only have two weeks left here. We got the chance to do some public outreach this past Saturday at the Charleston Marine Life Center. It was so awesome finally being able to share all of the things we have learned about ocean acidification and the research projects me and Steven have been working on all summer. It felt good to share what we know to the public and know that people are interested in it and want to do things to back on their carbon consumption. This past Saturday, all of the REU A couple of other interns went to Bastendorff beach and boogie boarded till our hand were numb from the freezing cold water we up here. |
AuthorHannah is an undergraduate student at UCLA studying Marine Biology and minoring in theater. She's just a gal who wants to be an adventurer both in the outdoors and her research. Check out her blog! Archives
August 2019
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