A Lab Notebook

 
Fv/Fm, S. costatum
Fv/Fm = 0.409
Fm = 1403.0
In addition to measuring the efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) I also took a pretty picture of my culture. Our lab microscope is equipped with some fancy-pants image acquisition hardware. I used this hardware on the microscope to acquire image below. The first image below shows a chain of three S. costatum cells. The largest of the three cells is probably 10 micrometers in its longest dimension (1000 micrometers = 1 millimeter). The cells are linked together by extracellular structures calleded "processes". The processes are barely visible as slight ripples attaching the corners of each cell to the adjacent cell. The lower two cells are particularly well-focused as one can see the large dark pillow structures within the cell. These large pillows are the chloroplasts. All of the production of the oxygen we breathe occurs within similar structures in all photosynthetic cells of plants.


As mentioned in earlier posts, the frustule, or outermost component of the cell wall of a diatom is made of silicate. Scanning electron microgrpah images of diatoms are pretty spectacular such as this one taken by Dee Breger the manager of the SEM/EDX Facility at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Dr. Breger super imposed the copyright symbol onto the diatom frustule, otherwise the image is completely real. The barel shaped object with the processes sticking outward is a diatom. The cool looking structure is comprised of silicate (glass). Behind this complex looking glass structure is the more familiar eukaryotic photosynthesizing cell described above This particular image is of an unidenitified tropical species, which resembles our beloved S. costatum to some degree.


As for running, Elizabeth and I went to Montauk this weekend. We explored a dizzying network of trails around some pond for about 50 minutes of easy running on Saturday. On Sunday we decided to run along the beach from our motel towards the Montauk Point lighthouse (approximately 7 miles one way by beach). We made it to within sight of the lighthouse, but the wind started to pick up and we were a bit underdressed. We turned back and jogged/scrambled for 90 minutes into a stiff and brisk headwind along the beach. In all, we jog/scrambled on the beach and rocks for 180 minutes on Sunday. I took Monday off and ran today. My run today had a 20 minute warm up and cool down. The warm up and cool down both occur during the run from my office to a Rutgers owned plot of forest which is about 2.5 miles away. The warm up and cool down are pleasant as most of the time is spent running past livestock and geese (I hate these animals with a passion) residing at some Rutgers operated research farms. I ran 2 loops within the forest at moderate pace. The first loop took 15:33 and the second loop took 14:47. The total run was 63 minutes (the warm up and cool down are actually about 17 minutes in length). The forest is pretty technical and has somewhat variable terrain, which combine to make it one of my favorite places to let loose. The sun was bright, the wind was stiff and brisk on the cool down back to the office, and the temp was a perfect 45.
- posted by alex @ 22:34