Week 3: Processing the Samples: Sanchit Kumar


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This week I have been taking the samples that I have gotten from Catalina and begun to crush them  into a powder that can be turned into pellets that are able be burned in an Elemental Analyzer and then transferred to a mass spectrometer in ord
er to test for carbon/nitrogen ratios.





To the right you can see my work station. In order to get my samples crushed I needed to first retrieve a labeled foil pocket that contained each sample, then I would crush each sample and place them into a tube labeled with the specific species, day, and replicate.  






Later in the week I will be using the Mass Spec machine in order to look for carbon nitrogen ratios in the samples that could suggest nitrogen fixation, and not just nitrogen uptake. This is however a tricky task due to the fact that the mass spec machine is not tuned to run macro algae samples, rather it is tuned more to running filtered water samples. 

The main problem is that for these small of samples of macro algae, the carbon levels would be extremely high and would most likely be saturated. So in order to combat this we must tune the mass spec to increase sensitivity to nitrogen while decreasing carbon sensitivity. 


Other than work it has been a great time at USC and I have made a ton of friends. We usually go out to eat or use the upstairs where the Lorenzo provides grilling stations.  And I am ready for the next week where we begin to do more runs on the mass spec machine and finally end up trying to tune our mass spec machine to the macro algae. 

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