Thanks so much for letting me give a presentation for you guys! I had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed meeting all of you. I want you to know that I was incredibly impressed with what you knew already, and I was even more impressed by the sorts of questions that you asked. Being able to ask good questions is one of the hallmarks of a good scientist. If you have any more questions that I didn’t get to answer, please post them as comments on my blog, and I would love to try to answer them. (And if I don’t know the answer, I will try my best to find out.) Also, good luck to those of you who are going to the science fair! I’m sure you’ll do great.
I will keep posting new stuff on my blog (and I’ll try to get friends of mine at UChicago to post stuff as well), so I hope all of you will keep in touch. If you have any suggestions, feel free to add comments.
- Thomas a.k.a. “The Gene Dude”
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Fluorescence microscopy image of a Drosophila embryo showing different domains of gene expression ( From the lab of Ethan Bier, UCSD)
I'm writing this blog mainly for the students at Peterson School so that they can get a sense of what doing science is like from a Peterson alumnus (me) who is now a scientist in training.
Cool Science Websites
Fluorescence microscopy image of a Drosophila embryo showing different domains of gene expression ( From the lab of Ethan Bier, UCSD)
Science-related videos on YouTube
- GFP-labeled stem cells in a mouse. Really cool!
- Superconducting levitation
- Particle physicist talks about Large Hadron Collider
- Atoms
- C. elegans roundworm with neurons labeled with GFP
- Synchronized mitosis in an early fly embryo -- the bright dots are fluorescently labeled nuclei
- Gastrulation in a fly embryo
- Fluorescein
Stuff about molecular biology
Stuff about chemistry
Blog Archive
About Me
- Thomas Graham
- I'm an masters (MPhil) student in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. I'm working with Dr. Robert Best to investigate using simplified models how the folding pathways of proteins are influenced by mechanical forces and chemical denaturants. Next year, I will return to the United States to do a Ph.D. in Systems Biology at Harvard University.
9 comments:
Hi, I am a Peterson School student in 7th grade. I did an experiment at home. I toke 2 beakers and filled water in it at 50 mL each and I put red food coloring in both of them. Then, I put salt in one of the beakers. i wanted to know which food coloring would go down to the beaker first. I left it over night. I looked at it in the morning, but in the beakers none of the food coloring went down to the the beakers it was the same as I left it. Can you please help me answer why the food coloring did not go down?
Thank You
Hi Haarisah,
Thanks for commenting on my blog! Could you describe what did happen in your experiment? Was the food coloring everywhere in both beakers at the end of the experiment?
If so, I guess you're wondering why the food coloring didn't sink to the bottom. Well, I think the best answer is that it would only sink to the bottom if it 1) more dense than water and 2) immiscible with water (which means that it can't mix with water). You have probably seen what happens when you put oil in water. The oil goes to the top because it is less dense, and does not mix with the water (i.e. they are immiscible). Separation of oil and water into different parts of the beaker is a classic example of a very general phenomenon called phase separation. I'm not sure if food coloring is more or less dense than pure water, but in any case, the food coloring is miscible with water, meaning that this sort of phase separation can't happen. You could try to keep the food coloring and the water apart, but diffusion, the process by which things move from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration, would inevitably cause them to mix.
Here's something interesting you might try: Make a very concentrated sugar solution by mixing water with lots of sugar. Then, very gently pour water with food coloring on top of the concentrated sugar solution. Try to pour it down the side of the beaker. The sugar solution will remain on the bottom temporarily, because it is more dense, but gradually sugar and food coloring will diffuse between the two layers, making them less distinct. If you wait for a while, the two layers will merge into a single layer. This should be a good way to observe diffusion in action.
I hope this answers your question! Please let me know if you have any others.
Thomas
Hi am Asaad from Peterson school and I was just wondering how the fluorescent thingy works. I was also wondering if you put that gene into a human would the kids of that person also glow. If so what would be the health factors if that gene was put into a human.
Hey,its me Haarisah
Thank you, yes that does answer my answer yea i will do that experiment and see what happens ok
thank you very much
Haarisah,
Let me know what happens too. I've actually never tried what I suggested, so I'd like to know if it works like I think it will. (I guess that means this is a real experiment, not just a demonstration!)
Thomas
Hi, i am Andre from Peterson school, i have been wondering what your next asaginment will be and if it will be related to this. When will you be coming back to Peterson?
Hey Andre,
If by my next assignment, you mean what I'm doing next year, then I'm going to be working on a masters degree at the University of Cambridge in England. Basically, I will be using computer simulations to try to understand how proteins fold. A protein starts out as just a polymer chain of amino acids, but somehow each chain folds into its own elaborate structure. There are some really amazing and beautiful molecular machines that essentially build themselves this way. Scientists are still trying to understand how this works. And I will be working on that problem next year. Thanks for asking! I'm sure I will be writing much more about it on my blog next year.
I don't know for sure when I will come to Peterson next, but it will definitely be before I leave for England.
Thomas
Hi my name is Julia, last year i did a science project where i took two pieces of little square cardboard and put Petroleum Jelly on both of them. And i put on outside and one inside, and i wanted to know why the one inside attracted more dirt and such on it than the one that was outside??? What is your opinion on why that happened???
Hi Julia,
Sorry it took so long for me to get back to you! I've been busy flying back and forth to interview at different graduate schools.
While we often worry about the air quality outside being bad, indoor air pollution can be a serious problem too. The results from your experiment seem to show that there is actually more pollution from particulates inside your house than outside. Yikes! (Don't worry...I don't think that it's just your house that has this problem...)
Here are links to some articles about the health effects of indoor air pollution:
http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.35381/
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2009/breysse_indoor_asthma.html
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