{"id":1434,"date":"2012-11-30T15:35:02","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T22:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2014-01-08T13:21:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T20:21:19","slug":"the-end-of-the-first-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/2012\/11\/30\/the-end-of-the-first-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of the First week!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow I honestly can’t believe it is already\u00a0the end of the first week of block 4! \u00a0Time\u00a0flies when you’re having\u00a0fun in a lab class.\u00a0But really this week flew by.\u00a0\u00a0That always seems to\u00a0happen the first week after block break\u00a0though.\u00a0 This block I am taking Bacterial Genetics\u00a0and Physiology.\u00a0 It is an upper level elective for Biology, and Biochem majors.\u00a0 We have 8 people total in class this block.\u00a0\u00a0 It is\u00a0the smallest class I have had\u00a0ever at CC and it is great!<\/p>\n

We have covered so much information about Bacteria this week! For example,\u00a0 did you know that Bacteria help form\u00a0rain clouds because they produce sulfate?\u00a0 Well I definitely didn’t until this past week. This is the reason they seeded the clouds in China before the Olympics to make it rain.\u00a0 Cool huh?\u00a0\u00a0 Bacteria can also help clean up sites that are toxic to animal and human life.\u00a0 It’s a process called Bioremediation and it was used\u00a0after the BP oil spill.\u00a0 The bacteria were able to use the oil as a source of fuel and help clean up the oil spill.\u00a0 It’s amazing to think that something that we can’t even see without a\u00a0microscope can have such a huge impact on all life.\u00a0 I mean microbes live pretty much everywhere on the planet and participate\u00a0in so many cycles on Earth it’s unreal. But, don’t freak about them living everywhere because a lot of them are harmless to humans and animals and actually use us to survive.\u00a0 So don’t think you have to constantly sanitize everything just because bacteria live everywhere on earth.<\/p>\n

Not only are we getting to learn about all the cool things bacteria can do, we\u00a0 have also been given the chance to do some hands on research in lab of mutant\u00a0\u00a0strains of a soil bacteria ADP1 (bacteria with deletions of specific genes). The mutants are strains that\u00a0Phoebe studies\u00a0in her lab here on\u00a0campus.\u00a0 We each have been assigned a mutant to work with for the block and are working with a partner.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday we each tested our mutants for ,twitching mobility, their ability to move in soft agar.\u00a0 This took about 5hrs! The nice thing is you\u00a0don’t have to stay in the lab\u00a0for this.\u00a0 You can just leave the plates in the incubator and come back and check on them after 3hrs.\u00a0 You can see a photo of our plate below! The red circles show how much the bacteria moved over those 5hrs. Amazing right?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday was an extremely long day.\u00a0 We were monitoring growth rates of our mutant strains and this process can take up to 12hrs.\u00a0 Luckily, Phoebe is great and didn’t want us to be\u00a0in the lab all night so she lessened the amount of time we needed\u00a0 monitor the growth rate!\u00a0 We started at 10am and finished at 7pm.\u00a0 Let me tell you waiting for bacteria to grow is a long process with a lot of down time.\u00a0 My mom said “Oh so your basically watching grass grow” when I talked to her on the phone, but trust me they grow faster than that.\u00a0 I thought it was pretty amazing to see how much the number of bacteria increased per hour even though it took FOREVER!\u00a0 My lab partner\u00a0 and I were so happy we had finished at 7pm that we gave each other a high-five upon leaving the lab.<\/p>\n

We still have a lot to learn in the upcoming weeks, but I’m enjoying the\u00a0long lab\u00a0hours because It gives us time to bond as a class and\u00a0talk to each other about\u00a0a lot of pointless and random things.\u00a0 It’s also nice to know you’re not alone in the lab. In the meantime, the first stage of our Grant Proposal is due on Monday and we have our first exam at 10am on Monday as well.\u00a0Wish us Luck!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow I honestly can’t believe it is already\u00a0the end of the first week of block 4! \u00a0Time\u00a0flies when you’re having\u00a0fun in a lab class.\u00a0But really this week flew by.\u00a0\u00a0That always seems to\u00a0happen the first week after block break\u00a0though.\u00a0 This block I am taking Bacterial Genetics\u00a0and Physiology.\u00a0 It is an upper level elective for Biology, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The End of the First week!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":318,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,44,15],"tags":[273],"class_list":["post-1434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-block4","category-by359","category-courses","tag-by359","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1RtXj-n8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/318"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1434"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1441,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1434\/revisions\/1441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/blockfeatures\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}