Good afternoon everybody! Things really started to heat up in the Miller lab this week. I’m talking literally and figuratively. John, another intern also working for Katrina, blew the fuse on our freeze dryer while trying to extract pigment from his algae samples. Oil spewed out everywhere and the smell of burning algae filled the entire 2nd floor. Granted it was not his fault as the machine hasn’t been repaired since it was purchased many many years ago, it did make for an asphyxiating afternoon and many angry scientists.
On the other side of the rising temperature were the rising tempers, as many of our sea urchins, the subjects for our experiment, had died of wasting disease over the weekend. Since around half of our red sea urchin population were deceased, the experiment could no longer produce reliable results and was therefore terminated. This was incredibly sad as the other interns, Katrina, and I had put in an immense amount of work during the first two weeks of experimentation. I guess some animals just so not respond well to captivity and/or very tight spaces. We have to live with that and move on. Since we do not know the exact reasons behind all of the deaths, we came up with a couple of alterations that we would try during re-experimentation. We would ensure that the urchins took on as little stress as possible during assessment meaning that we would take them out of the water for measurements and that is it. A fresher seawater supply would also be provided while feeding. Finally, we would present airstones for more frequent oxygen supply ensuring that none of them suffocate.
This is some ground Macrocystis. I am thinking that someday in the future this will be used in pomegranate super-tea for some added nutrition. Very high in vitamins!
On Monday, we pulled our algae samples out of the dehydrator because they had been in there for 5 days and it was time for grinding. We ground our algae samples until they were a fine powder. These samples were sent to the analytical laboratory for CHN testing and we should see the results sometime during my time here but given I only have two weeks left, its a little iffy. The results usually get back to the Miller lab within a week but government funding has been suspended for the analytical lab until August 1st. The root of this problem stems back to the extended shutdown at the beginning
of this year. Barely anybody even remembers that it happened until this stuff happens and the shortage of money brings down research facilities like the MSRB.
On Wednesday, the agenda was immense. Katrina was out on a dive and so John, Anusha, and I were given explicit instructions of what had to be done. I once again had to clean the tanks. Thank the lord this time I did not have to use the siphon, I flushed all of the water and suspended gunk right down the drain so the wastewater treatment plant can do the job for me. I then helped John and Anusha in weighing out six 40 gram samples of every type of algae. This is especially difficult when working with Rhodemenia as many sea creatures nest and lay eggs on the Rhodemenia leaves. All of this must be scraped off manually before an accurate weight can be achieved. Again, not something that you would expect to do at a research institution of this caliber. For the second experiment, we actually had to alter the different types of algae as not enough Laminaria was collected for the second go around. Instead, we used Acrosorium, a fluffy red alga that is also home to many small sea creatures. This stuff is very spongy and a small clump holds a ton of water.
A slow Thursday follow a long Wednesday but I did have my first urchin death. While attempting to remove the large red urchins from the sticky
The data that was collected before we sent our algae samples to the analytical lab.
wall of the holding tank I broke his shell and had to dispose of the remains. I felt terrible for the poor guy but he was going to be sacrificed anyways following the experiment. Thursday also consisted of me getting our new algae prepped for CHN testing. This did not take long at all and I was on my way shortly after.
Friday was great because I was able to release all of the unused purple urchins that Katrina had collected the week before. I went down to the beach and there was an entire high school there celebrating graduation. Many of the kids helped me release the urchins while others were trembling in fear over their spiny structures and the thought that they contained poison.
That was it for lab time this week. On Tuesday, while Katrina was out diving, I went down to Los Angeles with my host mother, Lora. I walked around downtown LA in the morning. I hit a ton of shops in the fashion district and visited a donut shop that had a one-hundred-dollar champagne donut served in a crystal bowl and covered in 24-karat edible gold on its menu. The streets of Los Angeles never fail to mesmerize me. Later, I took a bus out to Manhattan Beach to visit Sam Morell and get a taste of boujee LA suburban life. What I did not know before I embarked on this journey was that the LA bus system is horrible. Not knowing this prompted me to try my luck with the bus system as an uber would have been $35 each way and I wanted to save a couple of bucks. I called customer service and was told that I would need to complete three “lateral transfers” and it would take me to my exact destination. I was like great not rocket science but definitely more complicated than the Santa Barbara bus system. So, I get off where I am supposed to “laterally transfer” and it takes me a second to actually realize what this means because I am in the middle of a 6-lane highway. I get upstairs for my “lateral transfer” and get on the phone with customer service right when my bus arrives. The problem is that the bus was on the other side of the road. I could either try my luck with a desperate sprint in front of the speeding compact cars or look at my next best option. Poor service agent had to hear me complain about my small-town life and how I was not ready for the real world. Sorry, brother. After I poured my frustration all over him, he mentions “your not going to like when the next bus comes… THREE HOURS. Ding! Ding! Ding! I figured out why LA has the worst traffic in the continental United States! At this point, I just hang up. I have to figure out where I am. I notice that all of the houses have a Grand Theft Auto™ look to them. I zoom out on google maps and I see seven black letters appear around my blue figure. COMPTON!
My heart rate spikes even though I am not in any immediate danger. I actually did not know anything about the place except for the fact that it has a bad reputation. Now thinking about it, I was overreacting. I call Sam immediately, trembling in fear. I can see the newspaper headline, “Small town boy meets his end in the rough part of LA”. She tells me to calm down and that I am fine. I learn later that Compton has actually received a “glow-up” over the last two decades. We agree that I should just get an uber from there even though I am scared of getting in the car with a complete stranger in the “hood”. I am writing this blog so you know I made it
The calm after the storm?
but it the moment small-town Jonah thought his chances were dwindling. I feel a sense of relief as the broken down McDonalds’™ turn to designer fashion outlets. It was a long journey but it was “character building”. Next time I will pick my battles more wisely.
I met Sam and Kayla at a burger joint(I no longer had an appetite) around 2 o’clock. We ended up going to the beach, they gave me a little tour of the town, and the rest is history. After all of this, I was just thinking to myself if this is what half of a day in LA holds I wonder what an entire summer would have in store!
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