FIELD TRIP!!!!

Last Friday was the S-STEM field trip. We journeyed out to Dreamy Draw to take look into the ecology of ephemeral washes. Very familiar territory for me both literally and figuratively. The location was almost on the exact opposite side of Squaw Peak from my sample collection site, and my collection site also happens to be an ephemeral wash! The dry washes are a very interesting phenomenon ecologically speaking. As I am currently conducting research in a one of these washes, I have previously discussed much of the information that Matt relayed to us concerning them.

We also did a fair amount of geocache hunting. I really enjoyed this it had been at least 5 years since I have done any geocaching, and I am wondering why I ever stopped. In addition to this, Josh and Jenni both planted a couple of geocaches. I had never done this previously. Good times! Josh placed his at a fork in the path and had a clever clue to it's location based, of course, in Star Wars. Jenni found a large hole that turned out to be what we think was an exploratory mine. This area was used in mining cinnabar (mercury).

Matt, Josh, Andrew, and Jenni in Jenni's hole

As far as my lab work goes, This being a holiday, I don't have a lot to report. Monday's lab time was spent examining protocol for the sucrose based extraction. Today I conducted the PCI extraction on a fresh sample as well as the sample I soaked in the lysis buffer without grinding. Both of these instructions were completed using my makeshift wide bore pipette tips in an effort to reduce shearing. At the moment both sa,mples are held in a proscribed overnight freeze. Tomorrow, the extractions will be finished. As of now, the fresh extraction appears to be promising - I am seeing a precipitate (DNA) come out of solution. The other extraction, not so much. The solution is VERY clear - no signs of precipitate at all. Negative results are still results...