Microdissection and Coffee Don’t Mix

I’m going to have to preface this blog post with an explanation.  Right now, it is my job to work with little guys who look like this: ––––––––––––––––>

His name is Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and that’s what he looks like up close, but from a distance, Chlamy looks like green slime.  And for my lab rotation, I’ve been learning about different ways to manipulate Chlamy.

Last week I was learning about how to do tetrad analysis.  You mix two different types of Chlamy cells together and let them cross, then when enough time has passed, they form little clusters of four daughter cells in a sack.  Then you have to tease each of these four cells apart so when they grow and divide, you can study them individually.  This is done with a high-tech machine, you ask, right?  No.  It’s done with a fine glass stick and a really steady hand.

Pushing the little guys apart has a learning curve to it, obviously, but I was pretty sure I was getting the hang of it – until Friday.  All of a sudden I couldn’t separate the tetrads anymore.  Every time I tried to set the glass stick down on the agar, my hand would jerk and I’d gouge a hole in the gel and kill all my cells.  After trying every way of holding my hand steady I could think of (I looked like Dr. Strangelove), I couldn’t stand it anymore and went to one of the other grad students for help.  She took one look at my plate, and the first thing she asked me was, “Did you drink coffee today?”

Oh.

Muffins of Win

No photo of these guys because they didn’t last long enough.  🙂

As usual, this was a heavily modded version of an Allrecipes recipe.  Here’s what I did:

  • 1/2 c. butter
  • 1 1/2 c. white flour
  • 1/2 c. whole wheat flour*
  • 1 1/4 c. sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 c. yogurt**
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp grated orange zest
  • 1 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 handful slivered almonds
  • 2 handfuls dried cranberries

*  You can probably go as high as half and half for your whole-wheat-to-white ratio, but muffins are delicate creatures, so I didn’t risk it on the first try.

**  The kind with fat in it, not strawberry flavor.

Anyway.  Preheat the oven to 350º.  Mix all the dry ingredients in one bowl.  In  a mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar.  Add the eggs to that, mix well, then add the yogurt, mix, then the dry ingredients, mix.  Stir in the cranberries and almonds last, by hand.  Drop into muffin pans and bake 25-30 minutes.  Try tapping the tops with your finger (it won’t burn you) and take them out when they don’t feel liquid inside anymore.

These are best served right out of the oven with immodest amounts of butter.

The Trouble with a Badass Trench Coat…

… is you can’t raise your arms above your head.  At least not if you button it up.

I’ll admit, this came up because I want a trench coat.  A badass one, that’s long and black and buttony.  I want the tails to go flapping in the breeze as I go prancing about in frozen-over Minneapolis pretending I’m Neo from the Matrix.  And I found one, too, at the department store.  It was perfect – except some manufacturer decided it would be a good idea to cut the sleeves in such a way that your arms are literally pinned to your sides when you put it on.

How am I supposed to run around beating up Hugo Weaving clones if I can’t use my arms?