08:11 – I finished shooting images for the vertebrates lab session yesterday, except for a few that I’m waiting to receive prepared slides for. This will be my all-time record for one lab session. Something between 50 and 60 images. Now I’ll spend the next two or three days writing the text.
Once I finish that, I’m going to go back and add in at least one or two lab sessions in earlier chapters. I’d like to do one in the Life Processes group on mitosis and meiosis, but I’m not sure exactly how to do that as a lab session. It’s difficult to turn concepts that abstract into hands-on lab work, particularly since we’ll be dealing with chromosomes, which are tiny and difficult to see, let alone count or observe details. I guess I’ll figure something out.
just a thought .. try fruit fly chromosome preps or prepared slides .. I remember that they are quite large easy to see with a stain and count also to see the various stages of mitosis .. I remember doing a lot of fruit fly genetics labs in university biology .. only problem is a few escape ..
Thanks. Yes, Drosophila would work well, and I could make those slides myself. The problem is what readers will have access to (and be willing to pay for). I just shot five 400X images of the same section of an onion root tip showing different mitosis phases, adjusting the focus as little as possible between images. I wanted to show readers just how much a problem it is because the object is both tiny and three-dimensional. That’s the reason why we weren’t even sure about the number of human chromosomes until something like 1952.
Well, gee whiz, we got us a little bit of excitement round these here parts tonight, gents; after all that gobbledegook yakking about mens’ bare feet and nasty fungi killing people at supermarkets, I just had to look out the windows here and wonder what all the fuss is about.
Since 8PM there have been a multitude of fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, trucks, etc. up and down the next-over road, and I could see all the flashing strobes in the near distance, not too far from the propane tank complex. So you can imagine my interest.
Turns out it is a working structural fire at a construction company down that road, and the local authorities have apparently called out every goddam piece of apparatus available in the tri-county area here. Holy shit. Almost 10 now and still going.
Youse can prolly tell we don’t git us much excitement round here. The national cartoonist (and ‘Nam infantry officer vet) Jeff Danziger does cartoons about life here with phony nooz headlines like “Clothesline Snaps” and “Cat Runs Away.” In fact, our clotheslines HAVE snapped and we have had two ungrateful little buggering felines run away. So this here tonight has just got me in a frazzle.
Bet it ain’t this exciting down in Oz or over in Tiny Town or up the wilds of British Columbia tonight….let alone North Carolina….
I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you’ve thrown down the gauntlet, the tarp covering my patio furniture blew off today in a sudden gust of wind which I’m pretty sure was global warming.
here is da nooz story hot off da presses:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120106/NEWS02/120106010/Building-of-construction-firm-owned-by-Vermont-Lt-Gov-Phil-Scott-aflame-in-Middlesex?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FR
Now dat’s pretty funny. We had some high winds last year here and they blew three Adirondack chairs over in a row on their backs in the side yard. I took a picture and posted it online for the delectation of weather junkies everywhere.
Well, maybe just here in northern Vermont….
Emergency vehicles still at it down the road…the excitement just doesn’t stop here!
Any Men in Black?
Not that I noticed. Funny you should ask, though; the flick I watched last night was “Cowboys and Aliens.”
OFD, how was the movie?
It was OK, just your regular old sci-fi/Western action flick. You can see where they stole things from about six other movies of the last thirty years, though. I hope Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig aren’t having money problems or anything. I was groggy from toothache/pain meds and just wanted something mindless while all the red and blue lights were flashing down the road.
Tonight I will try to watch something cultural and educational….so long as it does not involve lots of mens’ bare feet and poisonous fungi.
I love old 50’s B-movies. Your post reminded me of _The Amazing Colossal Athlete’s Foot_
OFD, if you just bought a new house, why are you waiting until June to move? The weather?
Or is my mind going?
We are waiting to move in June because the owners are fixing a bunch of minor issues that showed up on the building inspection reports and other historical paperwork, plus, yeah, the weather. We have also had a very busy holiday season here on top of regular work, and just thought it would be easier for all concerned, including other family members with lots of major issues, if we do it then. Mrs. OFD, for example, is right now in northern Kalifornia for work this week, and then the following week is driving her mom down to Florida, where Mrs. OFD will then stay for at least a week or more. Another possible trip in February, and then a definite trip in March, plus our daughter back and forth to McGill in Montreal. So lots of stuff going on, and more, I am sure, than anyone here wanted to know, but damn, once I get going with these typing fingers, like Steve Martin’s happy feet, hopefully not bare, it’s hard to stop.
So no, your mind is not going. I don’t think. Mine is already gone, after this past month. Or maybe it went long ago.
Best of the new year to you, sir.
Hehe, moving is hell. I ended up moving house three times in the past six months. And that doesn’t count the various smaller moves from home to university and vice versa.
Good luck, OFD! Seize the opportunity to get rid of clutter.
I claim I’m never moving again, without pallbearers doing most of the heavy work!
Yes indeed, this is a great opportunity (and another reason for waiting until late spring) for getting rid of massive clutter and junk here. Stuff we’ve been unaccountably dragging around for fifteen years. My own inclination is to just rent a dumpster and start throwing everything into that, but the idea has so far been nixed by Mrs. OFD. We shall see.