Artemia, Protists, and Synthesis!

If Life didn't start here.. I'm beginning to think that it could have been easily brought here--after tonight, that is.

I set up a 1/2 liter container of water with some dust and crushed cracker in it last week, and I'm proud to say that I have a whole world of microorganisms growing now. There's quite the variety of cilliates and misc protozoans... plus at high magnification (1000x+) you can see swarms of rod-shaped bacteria! Check out this image of all of the bacteria:
I can only hope that things will get bigger and more interesting (without starting to smell up my room) in the next few days.

I've also been culturing some brine shrimp to look at. Right now, they are just oily naupili, easily squished and chock a block full of lipids. They're in their second day of life, and I can't wait until I get a few adult sized to play with.

This week went well even with me being sick. My two tests that I barely studied for went better than expected. I'm confident that I did better than I deserved on both the lab practical and lecture test. I've got a lab report due Wednesday, and I really need to get around to it. I've just got the easy stuff finished so far..leaving my discussion, intro, and abstract to complete. This week's lab produced a vial of rubber-cement smelling ester rather than the intended raspberry flavor; the TA said that was normal though...O well. I enjoyed this lab since it gave us the freedom to do the work to prepare for the experiment.

Anywho... I'm off to bed. I'm working the Science Olympiad tomorrow with Jennifer. I'm helping out with the Herpetology section. I'll be honest, I know next to nothing about herps... but it'll be interesting to see how the kids do on questions that I could only barely answer. I'm much more of a cellular or fish guy i think.

Cheers,
Andrew