Experimentation

Vocab

Coomassie Blue- blue powder used as a stain for proteins

Ethanol- straight-chain alcohol; very common solvent

Extinction Coefficient- derivative of absorbency vs. concentration (in moles)

Hood- local ventilation device in laboratories to limit exposure to hazardous fumes

Monday 2/7

I started with another very boring first hour doing more research on NGO's. Dr. A. came in after awhile and helped explain the most recent task he had given me. It was very similar to the last project I worked on, but instead of receiving instructions and measurements, I was given a hypothetical scenario and had to make my own calculations based upon the information given to me. I was extremely overwhelmed. I can follow instructions, but creating my own seemed too difficult. In the life of a real scientist this is the case, however. When doing research you aren't handed a sheet of instructions and then told to write down the answers. You are given a problem/situation and you have to create your own experiment. All the grad students had left for lunch, so I was stuck to work independently. Luckily, I have learned some things over the past few weeks. I did my own calculations for stock and dilutions by using the extinction coefficient for the molecule. I then measured my stock solution. Unfortunately, the new molecule I was using was insoluble in water so I had to use ethanol as the solvent. Because ethanol can be dangerous if inhaled, I had to work under the hood as well as use a more specialized set of pipettes. After labeling all my beakers and flasks I had my stock solution. Tomorrow I will begin making dilutions and testing them in the spec.