Jeffrey's Blog

Blog Post 1

Hello everybody! I’m Jeffrey and this is the first installment of three-or-so blogs I’m going to be writing this summer. Mostly, this will be about my internship in the Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences (wow, really upping that word count), but I tend to veer a little bit off once in a while, so bear with me. Also, if you can’t tell already, I’m a more “casual-speaking” blog writer, so if you’re looking for SAT words and vocabulary you’d use to win in Scrabble or Words with Friends, you might want to check out somebody else’s blog. But you’re definitely welcome here too.

So here’s a little bit about me: I’m a rising senior (how exciting – but if you ask me about college, I might have a mental breakdown) who goes to Aragon High School in San Mateo. I’ve taken a handful of science classes: Chemistry, AP Chemistry, AP Bio, and a couple of Biotechnology classes. I had a science internship last summer and really enjoyed it (and I learned a lot). Outside of science stuff, I like to bake, read, watch TV/YouTube videos, play sports (but not conditioning), and take naps (who doesn’t). I also like country music and superhero movies.

Now, more about the internship. Haha, just kidding -- not quite yet. I’m going to tell you a little about my commute/journey to the internship first. I live in Burlingame, so the commute takes me a little while (around an hour and change each way). I’ve taken Caltrain and the Stanford Marguerite bus to get to and from Stanford every day except the first day (I got driven because nobody wants to be late on their first day, duh). I’ve gotten lost a couple of times walking to the bus inside of Stanford, but really, it’s kind of nice getting lost (but only if you have a map because if you get lost without a map, you can get REALLY lost) because the campus is beautiful. And also, California weather, so walking around a little bit in the sun is actually pretty nice.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, here’s the science-y part. I work in the Paula Welander Lab, and my supervisor is the lab manager, Jeremy (who is super cool, which makes my life so much easier – and I’m not just saying this because he might read this or because he ordered micropipets and a Bunsen burner for my lab bench/station). So far, we’ve been looking at ciliate organisms, specifically one called Tetrahymena thermophila (oooh totally got to use the italic fancy lettering – score!). Right now, we’re running some experiments and trying to create a growth curve for two different strains of the T. thermophila we have.

Image 1: Hemocytometer grid through microscope. You have no idea how long it took me to get this picture – iPhones camera + fancy microscope is not a combination for rookies (like me)

Within this experiment, there are two main measurements we take. One is a cell count. Like, literally, just count the cells. Actually, kill them first with formaldehyde, THEN count them. We use a hemocytometer (fancy words for a microscope slide with a little grid pattern) to estimate the number of cells in the sample. The hemocytometer has boxes that look like these (see image 1) that are 1 mm x 1 mm x 0.1 mm. Knowing that, you can estimate about the entire sample altogether. In order to use the hemocytometer though, I use a CRAZY fancy expensive-looking (probably worth more than my life) microscope (see image 2) I was totally intimidated by it the first time I saw it (my jaw literally dropped), and I’m still kind of scared of it, but less so now than before. Counting cells is a little bit boring, but it turns out that it works out pretty well when you can pop in your ear buds and rock out while you’re doing it.

Image 2: Microscope.

The other measurement we take is optical density. I understand it to be pretty similar to absorbance, a measurement we use in my Biotech classes when we use spectrophotometers. I think it has to do with light shining through the sample and determining how much light passed through and how much didn’t (I think it’s the how much didn’t). If you want more information about it, you can ask a friend (who knows, maybe they’re living a secret double life and their alter ego is a scientist. Or maybe you have smart friends. I don’t know) or put it into the Google machine. Anyway, optical density is really nifty because basically, you put a sample in the machine, and the fancy machine takes the data and puts it into a spreadsheet for you. More or less like a machine on the Jetsons (do people still watch that) where you put your thing in and data comes out. Anyways, this optical density reading should be related to the number of cells because more cells = more light blocked, and thus different optical density at different cell counts.

Image 3: Optical Density machine. Literally, my samples are in the plate and it does all the work for you. The wonders of modern technology.

So what do we do with this data? We've been plotting it in graphs – optical density vs. cell count, optical density over time, and cell count over time – to look at how the populations of T. thermophila (yay, more italics) behave (more specifically, grow). The plan is to use this data in further experiments, so that I don’t end up having to manually count cells each time (because although that’s a BLAST, it’s much faster/easier to do other things).

Now I’m sure, if you’re a prospective summer intern for next year or the year after that or whatever, or if you’re a just a reader who is curious, or anything else, you’re wondering how much chore-ish lab work I do (if not, that’s great, but I’m going to touch on it anyway). The answer to that is, my fair share (at least, I hope). I’ve done the dishes (in the decked-out dishwasher), helped refill the autoclave with water, prep some stuff for autoclaving, and a handful of other tasks just to help the lab stay functional. I also try to keep my lab area clean, but sometimes life gets in the way (and by that, I mean there’s probably some more pressing task and I clean the table later. Literally, “life getting in the way” should be an excuse for everything). But no, curious potential student/reader, I am not a tall-ish, Starbucks-loving Roomba for the lab (in other words, I’m not a cleaning slave)– I get to do “real science” (whatever that means. What is “fake science?”) and I get to ask lots of questions (whose answers are usually a bit over my head).

Well that’s a quick summary of what we’ve been doing in lab so far in a couple weeks of the internship. Outside of lab, I’ve gotten to meet a few of the other interns and hear about what they’re doing. We all got to analyze ocean graphs and data (I now know more about El Nino and La Nina than ever before) and listen to a couple of grad students (smart people. Like reallly smart. Like they deserve the third L in reallly) talk about their lives and projects. It’s been a pretty good couple of weeks so far, and I’m looking forward to what’s going to happen during the rest of summer (wow, that was so cheesy it hurts. But it’s real, so you’re going to have to bear with it).

Wow, this post is really long. Like, I’m pretty sure you didn’t sign up to read a novel, but oh well. I hope you enjoyed it and there will probably be another one in a couple of weeks. Until then, happy almost Fourth of July to y’all (wow I’m a cowboy super cool)!

Jeffrey

And finally, a joke because you’ve made it to the very bottom! It’s Wednesday and I love a corny joke to help me make it over the hump. It’s (kind of) Fourth of July related too!

What did one flag say to the other flag?

Nothing. It just waved!

Thanks to http://www.surfnetkids.com/independenceday/271/top-ten-fourth-of-july-jokes/ for that joke.

Blog Post 2

Hey guys! It’s Jeffrey. Welcome back to my blog! This is the second installment of three-ish entries I’m going to be writing this summer. If you haven’t read the first one, I suggest you do that in order to better acquaint yourself with what this blog is and what it’s about. But I can’t force you, so you’re welcome to start here if you feel like it.

Last time I wrote, I was investigating the ciliate species Tetrahymena thermophila and some of its properties. We’re still doing that, but now we’ve moved onto a bit more specific process in the organism. What we’re looking at are the sterols and molecules-similar-to-sterols that the T. thermophila make and use and their effect on the ciliates.

If that doesn't really mean anything to you, don’t worry. If it does, keep reading to learn more! Literally, at the beginning of this summer, Ms. Saltzman (Jenny) said that we’d incorporate the fancy science jargon into our vocabulary eventually, and there it was. But I would be rude (and not really a great blogger) if I didn’t translate this into English (or at least try) for y’all (see image 1).

So, I’m sure most of you have heard of cholesterol. People scream and hide and throw lots of shade at cholesterol when it’s in food, which kind of gives cholesterol a bad rap. It turns out that cholesterol is a member of a group of molecules called sterols, and they are integral to keeping your body running. NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT ME CLAIMING THAT YOU OUGHT TO GO OUT AND CONSUME TONS OF CHOLESTEROL – for one, I’m a high school student (and do you really want to stake your health and welfare on something I said) and also, that cholesterol in food can lead to an excess of cholesterol, which leads to all sorts of nasty things. Anyways, cholesterol specifically serves some really important purposes, one of which is strengthening the cell membrane (read: outer layer) of cells, which is important because the cell membrane is one of the things that dictates what goes in and out of cells.

So the interesting thing about the specific organism we’re studying is that it doesn’t make sterols like cholesterol. It makes this interesting compound called tetrahymanol, which is kind of like a substitute for the sterols. Another interesting thing about T. thermophila is that when it grows in the presence of cholesterol, it stops making the tetrahymanol. We want to investigate phenomena like this, and find out lots about why. This is technically an Earth Sciences internship, but there are lots of other different branches of science involved too – there’s an organic chemistry component (which is the most over my head part of this, I think. Like it’s so far over my head, it might as well be a jet plane or rocket in the sky or space), an evolutionary component, a microbiology component, and many more.

Now, I know you have lots and lots of questions. I did too (and have new questions all the time). There are some overarching questions (Why is this relevant? Why are you studying this? Why does this matter? Will new discoveries made about this impact my trip to Hawaii next weekend [sidenote: I wish I was going to Hawaii]?) as well as some more specific questions (How is tetrahymanol synthesized (made)? What are the molecular differences between cholesterol and tetrahymanol? Do the ciliates poop?), and I definitely can’t answer them all. That was a brief summary of broad goals, and now I’ll talk some more about what exactly I do.

These past couple of weeks, I’ve been running an experiment where I grow the ciliates in media (basically, food) with different amounts of cholesterol and measuring the numbers of them in order to see if the cholesterol affects their growth – the cell counts and ODs from last post. Also, we did some lipid (a fancy science word for fats) analysis on the samples to see what the makeup of sterols was after growing them in different amounts of cholesterol (see image 2). Who knew fats could be so interesting? Not me, that’s for sure. I generally don’t sit at my kitchen counter looking at sticks of butter and things. But it turns out that data is really cool, especially when you’re the one who gathers it.

One interesting thing about this process is that the data really benefits from lots of different time-points. For example, 4 hour measurements in addition to 24 hour measurements in addition to 3 day measurements. Having lots of different times (and more data in general) helps paint a better picture of growth and development. What this means is that I’ll go in at different times of the day to take measurements and start new cultures (of the ciliates). So like, I go in earlier sometimes (8AM) and stay later sometimes (after the field trip) in order to get the data I want. Lots of logistics and planning, but it’s kind of worth it when there’s a beautiful growth curve that comes out of it. Sadly, not all of my graphs are pretty – some are downright monstrous – but now I appreciate data points so much more.

Now I’m gonna talk a bit more about how the lab is, and kind of cut away from the experiments and technical stuff. So if that’s what you came for, I think that’s about it. You can move to the next person’s blog now if you want (or don’t, because you don’t want to). Oh, and also, I strongly recommend that y’all check out some other intern blogs (I’m sure you do, because who would come just for mine LOL) because they all have very different stories and projects, which are very interesting. And this is my real opinion about their blogs – I’m not being paid to promote them or anything (at least to the best of your knowledge haha).

So the lab I work in, the Paula Welander lab as I said last time, is a great environment to work in. I work alongside a bunch of real-deal researchers, which is a little bit intimidating because WOW THEY ARE SMART. Like, the kind of in-depth understanding they have of basically all this stuff is crazy, like my-brain-is-melting-what-even kind of crazy (a good crazy). But even though they’re all quite a bit more intellectually experienced (read: smarter) than I am, they’re super welcoming and willing to explain the little things to me. I haven’t had to use the “smile and nod” technique (you know what I’m talking about. Like, if someone is speaking another language, or you don’t understand, there’s the “smile and nod”) yet, simply because they are really nice about bringing me up to speed about the stuff I’m learning. Also, I try to read some existing studies about these organisms and ask them questions (because I have tons). I like this because I feel like I can grasp some of the different concepts through reading what other people have studied too (see image 3).

The lab itself is super nice as well. There’s tons of fancy equipment (like I showed last time) and cool stuff in there. I mainly work in two rooms in the Green Earth Sciences building, the Paula Welander lab and another shared lab, where there are some incubators and the gigantic microscope (from last time). I feel like I make that trip down the hall a zillion times a day (in reality, it's probably closer to eight or something). The hall has science posters (of people’s experiments on the walls), which are interesting to “read” (which is more like picking out terms I understand and celebrating that I know those) when I have free time.

So, as I write this in the middle of July, rapidly approaching August, I decided I might do a little bit of reflection on what I’ve done so far. I came to this internship not only to learn about science, but also to learn about what “scientists” do and how labs like this work. At this point, I definitely feel like I’m succeeding in that because I always come home having learned something new, whether it be about cholesterol or about autoclaves or sterile technique. And really, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

So this is the end of my blog for today, and I hope to see you next time!

Jeffrey

Q: What do you call an elephant that doesn't matter? A: An irrelephant.

The source: http://www.jokes4us.com/miscellaneousjokes/cleanjokes.html

Image 1: A paper I was trying to read. I don’t know if you can read it, but I don’t understand probably about every third word, which makes things a little hard. Also, can we talk about using Greek letters like delta – this is literally a different language.

Image 2: My cholesterol study. I have four groups (three experimental treatments and a control group): each has a different amount of cholesterol, as noted on the labels. The foil on top is necessary in order to maintain sterility – we don’t want other things growing along with the T. thermophila if we can help it.

Image 3: Some literature. I’m pretty sure I used up a whole pen annotating and I still don’t fully understand everything (LOL organic chemistry). These are a fun challenge!

Blog Post 3

Well, the summer has gone by so fast. So. Darned. Fast. Like, I got an alarming email from my high school reminding me that school starts next Wednesday (the 12^th) and I panicked big time and asked myself a lot of questions. What did I do this summer? Did I have enough fun? Do I have something to say when we get back to class and the teacher is like “Share something you did this summer” that’s not super boring?

Luckily, I had this internship. I have plenty of good stories and lots of information about science and I am slowly getting closer to figuring out what I want to do with my life. This has been a fun and rewarding experience for me – what more could I have wanted from this summer?

So for the last couple weeks of the internship, I continued to work with Tetrahymena thermophila, the ciliate organism I had been working with before (all this past tense makes me sad). We ran experiments with low oxygen, and also with feeding the T. thermophila different strains of E. coli to see how those things would change the growth and production of certain compounds by the ciliates.

In doing all of that, I learned a bit more about setting up experiments and what goes into that – thinking about measurements and the number of controls, etc. It seems kind of basic if you think about it (it’s what they taught in elementary school), but when you throw in tons of variables, things get pretty confusing.

So in summary, this summer, I had tons of different learning experiences ranging from more science-y (lab time) to less science-y (lab lunch, which by the way, was totally awesome). It’s been so fun and it was a totally bittersweet moment when I walked out the doors of Green on Wednesday.

Some images and captions:

This is the side door to Green. This is where the adventure began and also where it ended. I remember walking in (this is a side door) and thinking, “Things totally just got so real.”

Applicable emotions to last day of internship: I figured I might share this with you since I passed this every day on the way into lab. A sad day indeed.

And finally, the joke that you all have been expecting (for the final time!)

Teacher: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?

Donald: H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O.

Teacher: What are you talking about?

Donald: Yesterday you said it was H to O.

Taken from Caleb R., Jackson at http://boyslife.org/features/32016/back-to-school-jokes/

Well that’s it for this summer!

Jeffrey